Detroit Rising

31 January 2007 - 7:00am

A cadre of architects, planners, and designers descended upon Detroit for the 9th annual University of Michigan Detroit design charrette. The focus: a more livable and inhabited downtown for the country's most maligned, but up-and-coming cities.

"Some of the nation's leading city planners, architects and designers envision a downtown Detroit in 2011 with 10,000 new residents, a big box retailer to replace the MGM Grand Detroit temporary casino, a new arena for the Detroit Red Wings on Grand River and more green space."

"Those were among the dozens of suggestions offered Monday evening by four groups that totaled more than 80 people who brainstormed ways to keep the momentum going in a downtown that's beginning to attract new residents and development."

"The ideas were presented to a packed crowd at the Gem Theatre that included key city officials, suburban developers such as billionaire A. Alfred Taubman and city boosters. The presentation was part of the 9th Annual Detroit Design Workshop organized by the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning."

Source: The Detroit News, January 30, 2007
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No matter how one wanted to organize the ideal city, housing security would be part of it. No community can function effectively if large numbers of its residents are regularly displaced or perpetually at risk of being displaced.