I'm Spreading the Rumor of a Downtown Grocery Store! (Detroit: best neighborhoods, neighborhood)

[detwahDJ]

The trolls on this site are hoping the rest of us are stupid, ignorant, or have never been anywhere else.
Drive through Chicago's south side at night. Convenience stores lock their doors at dusk and customers knock for entrance or a clerk comes to the door and asks you what they can get you. The attendants are behind bulletproof glass and take your money thru a sliding drawer. Okay, they're cautious.
Older cars full of young men sit watching for no apparent reason. Okay maybe they're cops, but I doubt it.
A panhandler at a gas station asked me for a dollar - I gave him a ten. He looked at me strangely and hurried away. I thought why no thank you? He obviously thought I had made a mistake.

Check the crime maps for other cities and the comments, you might be surprised! Things are starting to happen and people are concerned.
Some people have a thinly disguised hatred of Detroit and its residents. They tell you that they are "realistic" and want to help. They don't! Let's quit responding to the trolls and elevate the conversation.

[detroitlove]

Originally Posted by detwahDJ

The trolls on this site are hoping the rest of us are stupid, ignorant, or have never been anywhere else.
Drive through Chicago's south side at night. Convenience stores lock their doors at dusk and customers knock for entrance or a clerk comes to the door and asks you what they can get you. The attendants are behind bulletproof glass and take your money thru a sliding drawer. Okay, they're cautious.
Older cars full of young men sit watching for no apparent reason. Okay maybe they're cops, but I doubt it.
A panhandler at a gas station asked me for a dollar - I gave him a ten. He looked at me strangely and hurried away. I thought why no thank you? He obviously thought I had made a mistake.

Check the crime maps for other cities and the comments, you might be surprised! Things are starting to happen and people are concerned.
Some people have a thinly disguised hatred of Detroit and its residents. They tell you that they are "realistic" and want to help. They don't! Let's quit responding to the trolls and elevate the conversation.

well said

[Slappy san]

Originally Posted by detwahDJ

The trolls on this site are hoping the rest of us are stupid, ignorant, or have never been anywhere else.
Drive through Chicago's south side at night. Convenience stores lock their doors at dusk and customers knock for entrance or a clerk comes to the door and asks you what they can get you. The attendants are behind bulletproof glass and take your money thru a sliding drawer. Okay, they're cautious.
Older cars full of young men sit watching for no apparent reason. Okay maybe they're cops, but I doubt it.
A panhandler at a gas station asked me for a dollar - I gave him a ten. He looked at me strangely and hurried away. I thought why no thank you? He obviously thought I had made a mistake.

Check the crime maps for other cities and the comments, you might be surprised! Things are starting to happen and people are concerned.
Some people have a thinly disguised hatred of Detroit and its residents. They tell you that they are "realistic" and want to help. They don't! Let's quit responding to the trolls and elevate the conversation.

Unfortunately the trolls outnumber us. It'd be nice to have a place to discuss things without people with an agenda fueled by hate.

[Ohio248]

Chicago's South Side is awful, but I don't think that should be the model for Detroit.

Detroit can do better, and the excuse that "Chicago has vast ghettos so we can have them too" doesn't hold water.

Chicago, while vastly overrated and second-tier (IMO), also has many stable and thriving neighborhoods. Detroit needs to build up more stable areas. It's essentially in triage mode.

[detwahDJ]

Let me be clear, it pains me to criticize another city, especially one I love, but I wanted to respond to the trolls who seem to have an agenda - they've been getting away with a lot. Some trolls are subtle, let's not feed 'em!
Chicago is a GREAT city - I love it! I'm into blues music and Chicago blues is the best thing to ever happen to music. It's one of the city's gifts to the world, (among many others). That's why I found myself in Chicago on occasion. The media would have you think every city is one or two-dimensional. People who live there know differently. This includes Detroit.
The natl media deals in cliches (keeps things simple for their dumbed-down audience) - every city has its cliche image ("cars, crime & blight" for Detroit). Think about the cliche images we have for other cities, they've all got 'em.
Okay this is a rant, but I think it's pertinent.

[Retroit]

Originally Posted by detwahDJ

The trolls on this site are hoping the rest of us are stupid, ignorant, or have never been anywhere else.

Are you suggesting that Detroit is normal? It seems to me that, measured by all the other places in our country, the City of Detroit and the South Side of Chicago are abnormal. True, they may be typical inner cities, but for the majority of people in this country, who by the way don't live in inner cities, they are atypical.

In other words, the so-called "trolls" outnumber whatever it is that you are. In metropolitan Detroit, 80% of the people live outside the city proper.

[detwahDJ]

Wha.....have I hit a nerve?
A short note about Chicago's historic south side that I remember - it's BIG and takes a long time to drive through. As you know, the city is long & narrow, drive west and it become more prosperous.
I like the original post about a new grocery in Detroit, because I remember how businesses followed the "poverty fringe" outward to the burbs. Why not focus this thread on new businesses and the entrepreneurial spirit I hear is developing in the city. I heard that Motor City Denim has converted an old upholstery factory in the burbs to the manufacture & design of clothing Detroit style? Yes, I've seen it. It's unique! There is other stuff going on I'm sure. I believe there is creative talent in the city that can be exploited if recognized (Berry Gordy knew this). Detroit has always engendered talented people - many actors & directors are in Hollywood because that's where the industry is. The movie industry in Michigan could be a loss-leader until it picks up steam.
I'd like to keep following these posts for updates on what's developing.

[ForStarters]

To help steer this ship back on course .... word on the street is that Ye Ole Butcher Shop on Woodward in lower Midtown is prepping to reopen first of the year. This place was open for a while and then closed. They then announced that they would reopen this past May, but interior work has been going on for many months and it looks like they're finally all done. My expectation is that they will be open again in January, so we'll see. Ye Ole Butcher Shop is a high quality grocery/butcher. In the past they carried top-notch stuff, so I hope they continue that tradition.

Ye Olde Butcher Shoppe Press Release | Facebook

[Cliffie]

This is great. It creates jobs, it gives purpose to an empty downtown building, and it gives the local people a shot at some home-cooked meals not based on McNugget or Franco-American technology. I only hope it's not some dinkweedy gourmet place that will close in 6 months because nobody wants to pay $4 per orange.

[Yac]

Back on topic folks, this thread is not about Chicago.
Yac.