If you feel that it's impossible to turn on the news or pick up a paper without hearing about Midtown, it's because of a revolutionary partnership of change agents, funding and big ideas that are turning Detroit's cultural district into a laboratory for repopulating the city.
More than 30,000 employees of Henry Ford, Wayne State University and the Detroit Medical Center are eligible for the "Live Midtown" program, which will offer downpayment assistance and rent subsidies to suburbanites willing to relocate to the D. Along with a new push by Mayor Dave Bing to attract police officers to Detroit's neighborhoods, "Live Midtown" is one piece of the puzzle that's brought in such heavyweights as the Hudson-Weber Foundation and the Kresge Foundation to battle the city's declining population numbers.
Excerpt:
It's a piece of a larger program called "15 X 15" that hopes to attract
15,000 young people with a four-year degree or more to repopulate
Detroit by 2015 that Gov. Rick Snyder touted in his State of the State
address. The two initiatives are among a number of efforts to revitalize
Detroit, including bringing light rail up Woodward Avenue, attracting
more grocery stores and encouraging business to invest where new
residents live.
Find out more about what's happening in Midtown
here.
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