Re-investing in Detroit’s Eastern Market
Via the Detroit Free Press:
It’s official: Detroit’s Eastern Market is an unpolished gem that, properly cared for, could become one of the region’s crown jewels.
Savvy Detroiters have been saying so for years, but now a group of outside experts, after spending the better part of a week in the city studying Eastern Market, has reached the same conclusion. And the experts have offered detailed advice on how to make it happen.
Sponsored by the Urban Land Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that is one of the nation’s premier organizations devoted to urban planning and development issues, the nine-member team offered its recommendations Friday. They included the creation of a powerful new public entity to run Eastern Market.
Once again it’s taken an outside group of experts to dream up new strategies for an underutilized gem in the heart of Detroit. If only the city officials could learn to be more self-supporting. In mid-January 2005, the U of M Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning will be hosting a design charrette focusing on Detroit’s Eastern Market. Hopefully the urban designers will work with the area’s artists and musicians who currently inhabit the market district.
I hope this doesn’t mean Starbucks is going to be moving in on Russel St.
Ha, that IS scary!! I too am concerned about the side effects of gentrification. On one hand, it would be great to see the market area thrive. On the other, I’d hate to see all the people who have basically kept the market alive be driven out due to escalating costs. Also, I’d really like to see more affordable housing…
it seems to be so hard to find that balance between a successful and thriving neighborhood and maintaining the uniqueness that makes it special in the first place. i’ll admit my first reaction to Hard Rock Cafe going into Campus Martius was one of excitement since it indicated that Detroit was “worth” having what every other major city has. But is that really what I want-to have the same predictable things in every city I visit? Quite the contrary!