Detroit is the New Black: The Evolution of America’s City

My love affair with Detroit started 25 years ago watching Barry Sanders and the Lions when I first moved to the US from Germany. It was actually one of the first games I ever watched. About 12 years ago I once again fell in love with Detroit and Cadillacs when I bought my 64 Coupe DeVille. I called him DogDog, like an old friend. My favorite pieces of clothing are a cadillac t-shirt that I have had for 14 years and a Lions t-shirt that is 22 years old. (I still wear them.) Throughout all these years, I have been linked to Detroit, and have always wondered what it was like.

Of course, in the past couple of years, Detroit has faced many issues if you go by what has been seen in the news, you would wonder why anyone would want to live there. The city filed chapter 9 bankruptcy (debt at an estimated $18–20 billion), large parts of the city are desolate, crime is high, public transportation has been referred to as “decrepit”, schools need a lot of help, and you can’t get a mortgage for many houses even though some go for as little as $10,000 (which sounds weird but when the average net worth of a citizen of Detroit is $250, it’s not as simple as it sounds.)

The people of Detroit built this country. Ford Motor Company was established there, and the assembly line revolutionized the auto industry. They were the first city to pave a concrete road, assign individual phone numbers, and broadcast news radio. They’re the home of numerous sports legends, motown, and of course, automobiles.

Yet the city has had quite a lot of trouble recently. Why? I guess the answer comes from a number of reasons: corruption, mismanagement of money, a shift from an industrial to information economy, the Great Recession , and so on.

Over the past six months I have done over 300 hours of research on Detroit and I admit that the negative stories and statistics far outweigh the positive. However, something drew me to Detroit, and last February, while listening to Steve Case at Startup Grind, the concept for the Innovate Detroit Challenge came to me. I realized it was the perfect way that my company, IdeaMarket could get involved with other entrepreneurs, ones who really wanted to make a difference. We were already hosting ideas from investors and letting entrepreneurs come up with solutions on our platform. Why not make it city and cause based?

We started talking about the challenge as a company right before SXSW, and we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. At least, I didn’t. We just went for it. I had gotten it into my head that we would crowdsource ways to innovate Detroit and bring it back to its glory days — the backbone of the US. We decided to host an Idea House in Austin where people came and put ideas on the wall on talked about how they would innovate Detroit. And people actually came. Almost a thousand submissions later, we had an office full of ideas: homelessness, training the workforce, crime, transportation, education, healthcare, blight, reclaiming wood, micro finance, manufacturing, and dozens of other verticals that sounded like there was room for innovation.

We were overwhelmed. We didn’t know where to start or what to pick, but we did notice patterns and it became clear that six verticals stood out: education, crime, training, finance, transportation and healthcare…Duh! All were typical problems a big city faces, however in the case of Detroit, they were extreme problems.

I guess we could have just googled all this and gotten the same results, but getting the ideas from actual people, many of whom were residents, was more valuable to us. One of the ideas submitted was actually to fix the SEO for the city of Detroit. (Fucking genius! I hope someone does it.)

So, we did what I should have done years ago, we planned a trip to Detroit to talk to community leaders, academics, investors and entrepreneurs, to see what they thought. We were warned several times that the people of Detroit were proud and that outsiders should not come and tell the community how to fix their problems. Land Mines, as someone called them. But I only knew one person in Detroit, and I didn’t even know who I was looking for. I remembered reading an article about a girl name Alisyn Malek in Fast Company, who had been a product person working on the Volt (Just bought one and I love it) and then had joined GM Ventures, all in her twenties! I sent her an inmail on LinkedIn and lo and behold, she responded.

”I usually get frustrated when people that have never been to Detroit start talking about their grand ideas for how to fix the problems they’ve never experienced,” she says reflecting back, “but I realized that this was an opportunity for me to have a direct impact and change that.”

After a couple more emails and a call, she made intros to investors and community leaders. This was the spark I needed. From that, I mind mapped the entire city, digging up anyone who had anything to do with startups, entrepreneurship, investment, and co-working. The list is now over 400 people and almost 80% have responded.

In May we decided to host an ideation event to get feedback and validation on the 6 verticals. Of course, I made a big rookie mistake — I planned the event during the Mackinac conference, when 90 percent of the traditional leaders in the city were not even there. Yet with our 30 amazing people, we played musical chairs, had tables set up with each of the challenges, and spent the evening having people rate and score each based on relevance, scalability and impact. The diversity in age, gender, race and expertise would have made any tech diversity tracker smile.

I guess I wasn’t surprised when transportation got the highest score. Now we just had to decide what we were going to do with this information, so we went to the experts: Bill Gross, IdeaMarket’s co-founder, and the folks at Xprize. We asked how we could frame a challenge around mobility and transportation.

We came up with a challenge model where entrepreneurs could submit a solution to innovate transportation, and the winning team would receive funding to turn their idea into a real-life Detroit based company. We also got down to the facts. What we found was astonishing.

The city of Detroit has a landmass of 138 square miles — much bigger than San Francisco, but smaller than New York. However, with only 5,144 people per square mile, it’s quite spread out, which means you need a car. But 26 percent of Detroit’s residents do not have access to a car. Public transit is your next bet. However, the major transit system, DDOT has seen a decline in ridership, with 36 million rides given

in 2012, and now 25 million rides given in 2014. Mayor Mike Duggan has shown his concern. During a speech last year he said “A job [in Detroit] means a reliable bus system.” However, it seems as though nothing is truly being done about it.

The stats could go on and on, but only the people who actually live there are going to know what it’s like. At this point, IdeaMarket had gotten commitments for $200,000 from local social impact funds and other investors and we were looking to launch the challenge as soon as possible. But I thought, let’s go back again and really get the scoop from the community and see how we could get them involved.

Fast forward to last week when my United flight landed on a beautiful, sunny day. I got my Cadillac rental (Sixt has dope cars) and headed to the hip, factory renovated loft I had rented on Airbnb (the place would be $5,000 in San Francisco) and then went to meet my buddy Bill.

And then it happened, everywhere we went, I met progressive people, I saw cool art, I heard great music and tasted delicious food. Everywhere we went I felt this energy. Yes, houses are deserted, there are tons of potholes, and streetlights are out, but all this didn’t take away from the incredible culture. I spent the following three days exploring the city, meeting people and hanging at some of the coolest little cafes, bars and galleries, while planning a dinner to invite the people I was meeting.

We decided to host the dinner at a spot called Craft Work. I spent the entire day at Great Lakes Coffee (my new favorite spot), working on invites, meeting people (I talked to anyone within 10 feet of me) and even got one of the people I met to come help with the Dinner. (Lids thanks for all your help. You inspired me to write this piece, there should be more of you! Don’t trip, the prime of Detroit is making a comeback!)

We soon exceeded the original goal of 20 people. By the time the dinner started we had 42 of the coolest people in the room, including the new head of entrepreneurship at Michigan State. I only knew about 10 of the people, but the energy was amazing, and the conversations were genuine. I told parts of this story, talked about the challenge and what we were planning and everyone offered to help, spread the word, potentially invest, or simply support. I was blown away. People stayed until 11 p.m. We started at seven.

At one point I went outside, sat on the curb, and stared at the streets that had once been booming. I had been working without a break and in this solo moment, it sank in how much I truly loved Detroit. I love the people, I love the potholes, I love the music, the art, the lack of traffic, the $2.59 gas, the coney dogs, the duck Confit sandwich at Dime Store, the cheap rent, and on and on.

Detroit is back, different and not perfect, but building and growing. “Detroit has always been known for it’s great contributions to industry and American History, so it’s super exciting to witness and be a part of its resurgence,” says Roslyn, a friend who designed an awesome “Detroit is the New Black” t-shirt that I bought and haven’t stopped wearing. Suddenly all the negative stats and figures that I had read about were gone. They had been replaced with new friends, new experiences and a sense of being part of something big. Something that will change the city and hopefully the lives of the people who call it home and love it more then I can ever explain.

I had fallen in love…again! With a feeling that I had not felt in a long time. I had come here expecting to see gloom and destruction, poverty and crime and I am sure that exists, but in that moment it was just love and hope.

So, what am I saying? I invite you to visit Detroit, grab pie at Sister Pie, buy Shawarma at Bucharest, go to one of the art gardens or watch a show of some local artists. Go have some BBQ at Slows, visit some of the companies at Ponyride, check out the DIA, get lost in Detroit. If you are looking for the freshest coffee ever, hit up Anamarie who runs Startup Grind. Stop and listen to the sound of Detroit as it comes roaring back. Watch the fireworks after a tigers game. Experience the city as you come to realize that it once was the engine of the country and feel it come to life again with a new sense of self and a different look.

Go to a Detroit Soup dinner and see what people have done with $1000 of donated money as a grant. (Amy you are my hero, I freaking love you!.) Buy a pair Detroit Denims, see some art at Corktown Studios, get one of Rebel Nell’s jewelry pieces (they’re beautiful) and soon, you’ll notice that you too will fall in love over and over with the people, the energy, the city and everything that is happening and being made there. If you need any tips on what to do or where to go, ask a local. If you need a place to work, stop by Bamboo coworking. Be prepared to put on a couple pounds, but I promise, it will be worth it and you too might fall in love with Detroit.

And finally, keep the love of Detroit alive by helping revitalize the city further with IdeaMarket’s transportation challenge. Help raise awareness to those who aren’t aware of Detroit’s potential! Let’s get adults to work, kids to school and businesses started by attracting entrepreneurs to the city and moving Detroit forward! And help us spread the word via our Thunderclap Campaign.

Keep on building, keep on growing and keep on being you!

Hello Detroit, I love you!!!! and I got you!

Part 2 next week!!!!

Peace,

Nima