Whew, It’s Been A While: Sunday Link-Fest

Now that I’ve scared off all six of my readers, it’s time I get this thing started up again.  Apologies for the long delay, but the life of a travelling consultant doesn’t bode well for constant blogging.

The Metro Detroit area has been abuzz with activity over the past few weeks, and with the holidays coming around the hits just keep on comin’.  It’s a glorious thing seeing all the activity around these parts, so to tack on to the fun here’s the Detroitists’ Link-Fest!

• If you live in Midtown, you were probably visited by one of dozens of marching bands, carolers, or other random denizens during last evening’s Noel Night, an annual tradition that opens the doors of Detroit’s finest, uh, finds for one evening.  This blogger was especially impressed by the showing at the Detroit Public Library and Detroit Institute of Arts, but being visited by the Cass Tech Marching Band while dining at Traffic Jam was pretty dang awesome.
• An interesting article on the state of affairs of Michigan’s public education system was in this week’s online Metro Times.  It would be a wee bit interesting if my friends over at the Skillman Foundation could offer up some perspective…
• I love HOUR Detroit — really, I do.  Despite its often-offcentered approach to reporting on all things Metro (hint: I have good word that Birmingham is NOT the epicenter of the area, sorry…), here comes a pretty sweet feature on Joel Landy, a Midtown-based developer.
• Find of the Week: do you like, uh, cougars and mullets and a whole heap of ridiculous fun that will make you call up your friends afterwards and scream “THAT JUST HAPPENED!!!”?  Boogie Fever is the place to go.  Prepare to be AMAZED.

More to come this week, hopefully….in the meantime, if you have suggestions for the LinkFest, tweet me.

LEAVE OUR GARDENS ALONE! :: Thursday Link-Fest

I finally snagged a couple of tickets to this weekend’s UofM – MSU football game.  You’d think that, after seven years and $[OMG] in tuition, I’d not only get free tickets, but Michigan would actually let me start at cornerback.  Hmph.

Here’s what’s eHappenin’ in the D today!

– Rep. Gabe Leland has introduced a bill that would exempt Detroit’s urban farms from the protection clauses in the Michigan Right to Farm Act.  Some claim it restricts the ability to open more urban farms in the city; others believe it allows the city to chart its own course.  I’m kinda sorting leaning toward the latter, especially considering Leland has been an advocate for bringing more local grocers to the city.

– This is old news amongst its residents, but the Detroit News makes note of an anonymous property purchaser buying up abandoned lots and buildings near the Masonic Temple.  This just keeps fueling speculation that Mike Illitch is planning to build a new sports venue in the neighborhood.  To say that such a plan would be a watershed moment for Midtown development is a gross understatement.

– While on the subject of Midtown, another “duh” moment for its residents but a “hmm!” for outsiders: the Sugar Hill neighborhood is witnessing an influx of artists, further driving up demand for work/live loft spaces in the corridor. (HT: Hour Detroit)

– Ding Dong, Kwame’s staying in jail.  My prediction: he still gets votes in the next election. (HT: Crain’s Detroit)

Got anything else you’d like to see on the Link-Fest? Twit me.

P.S.

I ran out of time to post a follow-up to yesterday’s scrawling, but I encountered a bit of a humorous little tidbit while reviewing my blog stats tonight:

someone found The Detroitists by Googling “[my name] married”.

It looks like I should start shaving more often; the googlers are lookin’ for love. 🙂

Welcome to THE DETROITISTS

I’m going back to Blog 0.1 here: in its original form, Rainierisms was created in an attempt to catalogue my transition from lifelong Midwesterner to adept Seattleite. And in similar form, I hope this blog will expose the highs and lows of living in one of America’s most maligned metros.

The contrasts are drastic between the two cities, to be honest.

Seattle ranks consistently high on magazines’ “Best Places to Live” List.  It’s happy when it’s not raining, healthy when the salmon aren’t laden with mercury, and has a bevy of neighborhoods teeming with young professionals, aspiring entrepreneurs, and empty nesters.  You’re no more than a few hundred meters away from a body of water in nearly all of Seattle, and the karaoke bars are unmatched anywhere else east of Manila.  The only problems Seattle faces are risks in housing price fluctuations….and volcanoes.

I always tell people that the reason why I moved to Detroit was because of the lack of threat from volcanoes, and while that may a sliiiiight stretch, it doesn’t seem to compensate for an absolute onslaught of negative opinions about the city.  The only lists it makes are those which declare it as miserable, the city’s population has been in freefall for the past decade, and high income taxes combined with ridiculous insurance rates make it wholly undesirable.  So, it wasn’t completely offensive to me when, while in Cape Town, an American inquiring about my place of residence stateside literally gasped when I told her where I lived.

She followed up the non-verbal retort with a simple, yet profound, one-word question: “WHY?”

…if you know me in person, you’ve received the two-minute diatribe outlining the multiple reasons why, when faced with the options of heading to well-established cities such as Chicago or Boston, I decided to take a chance on the D.  In due time, I’ll use this blog to re-explain some of those things, but I’d rather allow you to understand my reasons through stories, anecdotes, photos, and the daily encounters I have as a resident of what I like to call The Gritty City.  Hopefully, some fellow contributors will join me on the ride, offering guest commentary, podcasts, and whatever else is required to make this space worthwhile.

So.  Friends, relatives, readers, skeptics, proponents, opponents, and observers: here we go.  Welcome to The Detroitists.