Daily Detroit

Eight small business owners from Metro Detroit were featured recently on CNN Money. The story showed how Detroit entrepreneurs build their own support systems, but also portrayed small business as a key to reviving the city now that the automakers are losing economic ground.

But some Detroiters think there’s still a long way to go before the city starts cultivating these types of businesses. A panel discussion last night at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit explored Detroit’s role in inventing a new urban model, asking the question, “Is Detroit really the new Berlin?“

In a preview of the panel on the WDET radio show Detroit Today, Michigan Citizen Publisher Catherine Kelly talked about what she thinks are problems with Detroit’s small business atmosphere based on her family’s experience opening a cafe in Southwest Detroit.

Detroit Today, April 30: “The hurdles they had to go through to get this open shows that the structure is used to dealing with the older model, they’re used to dealing with corporations. We should be so free and open that basically you put up a sign out front, you open the doors and you’ve got a business.

We’re looking at third world realities and I think we almost need to start looking at third world solutions, rather than expecting some corporation to come in and create 4,000 jobs downtown …

Look at what happened during the Final Four, were there any vendors, were there any opportunities for a single individual person to go out and make some change in their life? This is where the tension comes in because we don’t see the city making it easy to get these licenses, encouraging these licenses.

Detroit small business resources:
Bizdom U: A one-year training program that helps participants develop an idea for a Detroit-based business. Students end the program with an approved business model and resources for funding.

SCORE Detroit: A nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small business in Southeast Michigan.

Michigan Small Business Association: An independent federal government agency broken into local and regional offices that aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns.

In an interesting take on Chrysler’s chapter 11 filing this afternoon, a New York Times article shows the United Auto Workers union coming out of the ordeal on top.

The New York Times, April 30: The U.A.W. members at both automakers stand to lose some of their pay and benefits, but the cuts are not as deep as those faced by airline and steel workers when their companies went bankrupt. Under proposed deals devised by the Treasury Department, U.A.W. pensions and retiree health care benefits would largely be protected.

The U.A.W. has derived its leverage in part from the support of a Democratic president and Congress. But it also results from a long-term strategy to build support in Washington that stretches back more than 60 years.

On the other side of the spectrum, 50 unsecured creditors listed on Chrysler’s bankruptcy filing, a large portion of which are based in Southeast Michigan, may not see a dime from the company. These include Chrysler’s Troy-based advertising firm BBDO and suppliers like Continental Automotive in Auburn Hills and Bridgewater Interiors in Detroit. Here’s a copy of the bankruptcy filing; the list of unsecured creditors, along with the amount of money owed, starts on page 12.

The president of the nonprofit Detroit leadership and economic growth organization Detroit Renaissance thinks plans for a light rail connecting Detroit’s New Center district to the riverfront would do little to stimulate economic growth.

Chad Halcom of Crain’s Detroit Business writes that Doug Rothwell broached the topic today during an economic development meeting in Birmingham.

Crain’s Detroit Business, April 29: Rothwell told 120 or so attendees at the chamber’s Regional Economic and Community Development Forecast that a rail line along Woodward was not a bad idea for the city and region, but shouldn’t be considered an integral part of a regional economic development strategy.

“Because of the way we’re dispersed in Southeast Michigan, I don’t know any one area where you could lay down a fixed mass transit line and get the critical mass to use it,” he said.

“The best route, maybe, that I could see is Woodward Avenue or…possibly M-59 connecting Oakland and Macomb county…But call me a skeptic.”

As of March, the project reports contributions of $44 million from financial backers including the Detroit Downtown Development Authority, the Kresge Foundation, Peter Karmanos, Jr. and Mike Ilitch. Its goal is to reach $120 million.

A Detroit Urban Land Institute meeting on May 5 will include a special presentation on the M1 Rail led by project CEO Matthew P. Cullen.

As expected, talk quickly turned to the failed Cobo deal in last night’s third and final Detroit mayoral debate. Candidate Dave Bing called it an example of failed leadership, and today in front of The Detroit News’ editorial board, Mayor Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. reflected on what he could have done differently.

He said he wishes he had pushed it harder, but mostly, he just blamed council members.

The Detroit News, April 24: “I take responsibility for some of it; there’s no doubt,” Cockrel told The Detroit News editorial board Friday. “We engaged council pretty heavily. In retrospect, I probably should have been more involved personally in that…

“I also recognize that at the end of the day it takes two to tango, and I think at a certain point, frankly, I think certain council members just got scared,” Cockrel said. “They were scared of the perception about how that may be seen by the voters in terms of what was being done.”

Without naming them, he said other council members just “didn’t want to work with us. They just didn’t want to get it done for whatever reason.”

The News’ editorial board talked to both candidates today and videos of the interviews are on detnews.com. Here are links to the first parts:

Mayor Cockrel’s interview with The Detroit News Editorial Board, Part 1

Dave Bing’s interview with The Detroit News editorial board, Part 1

Attention CNN Money: Not all young people want to leave Detroit in the dust (“Detroit’s youth: We’ll leave if we have to,” April 24, CNNMoney.com).

D-town creativity cultivator Detroit by Design is hosting a meet and greet tomorrow night featuring Mayor Kenneth Cockrel, Jr., hoping to rally the city’s young and talented behind the community.

The group hosts a monthly bash for artistically inclined young Detroiters called S2dio that showcases local music, art and photography. They’re dubbing this weekend’s event “a unique evening of entertainment w/ key Detroit creative, cultural and neighborhood community leaders.”

An invitation posted on the group’s blog in March, which advertised the date as April 24 instead of April 25, says the night will focus on “young professionals and organizations in our community supporting Detroit’s creative talent, cultural programs, and neighborhood development.”

Detroit by Design, March 6:
Program Highlights:
- Meet and Greet w/ Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel.
- Fashion shows by Femilia Organic Couture, William Malcolm and designer tba.
- Artwork by internationally acclaimed painter and designer, Camilo Pardo.
- Butter-style canape service and wine bar
-Music provided by Source Audio and Detroit by Design tba.

The evening kicks off with the mayoral reception at 7:30 p.m., followed by a dance party at 11 p.m. It’s located in the Bankle Building at 2944 Woodward Ave. in Detroit.

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Leave it to the national media to speculate how Detroit should fix its woeful financial state. But today brought even more bad news from the auto industry, and National Public Radio makes a good point — Detroit needs to tap into some new marketable commodities.

The story, which can be heard on npr.org and calls the Detroit music scene a “rich treasure trove,” runs through a musical history of Detroit, playing clips of everything from The Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love” and Mitch Ryder’s “Good Golly, Miss Molly” to Eminem’s “8 Mile.”

But the real interesting part of the story is less about Detroit’s musical past and more about monetizing it in the future.

NPR’s Morning Edition, April 23: Detroit lawyer Gregory Reed is convinced that Detroit can still turn its music scene into a tourist destination. “We haven’t cultivated our music culture or our talent to create the industry around it except through Motown,” he says. “We haven’t harvested, we haven’t nurtured it, and we have literally neglected it.”

Reed has been named head of a newly created Detroit Entertainment Commission. He says businesses need to see that there is money to be made. “You’ve got to plug in the business side,” he says. “Because other than that, the talent will leave the city, and it’s just a cycle.”

Reed says the commission’s goal is to focus on entrepreneurs with private funds who realize music is a valuable resource that the city hasn’t fully tapped.

But even without a physical place to point to as the home to Detroit’s music scene, the city continues to cultivate talent that it exports to the country and the world.

Here are some classic Detroit music clips that are sure to help boost spirits, if not the entire local economy.

“Where Did Our Love Go?” The Supremes

“Jenny Take a Ride,” Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels

“The Hardest Button to Button,” The White Stripes