CH. 7 loads bus with Suburbanites afraid of the CIty and brings them down

[ferntruth]

I could think of all kinds of snarky things to say about those pasty looking people but in the end they all seemed to dig the trip.

wow, racist much?

[JROLLA]

The fact of the matter is people outside of the city in our own state still view all of Detroit as a run down war zone, I liked the piece. I'm not really sure why whenever someone tries to do something positive and encourage people to come to the city, it gets spun as such a negative thing. I get being a realest but come on at least they are doing something.....

[rjk]

At least the outcome wasn't predictable. I wanted nothing to do with the city, but OMG I just love it now.

After you get a tour of the city including a free meal could you look like a bigger a-hole then by saying you han't really changed your mind?

Some of those people sounded like they've been living under a rock, but I'm sure that's exactly the way C7 wanted it. Let's get some knuckle draggers and if we can change their minds anyone can change.

[spitcoff]

people who wont spend time in Detroit make me sick. If you dont like detroit move to another metro area

[detroittrader]

wow, racist much?

I thought the people on the bus looked super white or "pasty", as if they had not spent any time out of the house this summer let alone come to Detroit, and I was glad they enjoyed the bus tour. I don't get how I am a racist, your the first person to ever call me that. An apology would be nice, but I read some of your posts on this board and you seem like a real dick so I won't be expecting one.

[wolverine]

Will they be asked for change? Will someone give them a threatening look? Tune in at 11:00 to see if our intrepid suburbanites survive the trip.

People will.....TALK.....TO........THEM!!

[grumpyoldlady]

All I get when I click on the video link is the 20D20 logo and "page not found".

[XDetroitr]

There's obviously a lot to laugh at in the video. But the fact remains that Detroit is unlike any other major city in the US. Decades of being at the top of the crime stats list have destroyed not just the city, but it's sense of safety. Real or perceived, suburban white people will remain apprehensive of travelling inside the city limits until they 'feel' safer. As someone who has been a victim of multiple crimes while living within the city limits, I know the relative dangers as they compare with living in the safer neighborhoods of Chicago and New York. Showing non-Detroiters there are safe areas of the city is invaluable. Lets hope these areas continue to expand as more development and new people move into Detroit.

[MSUguy]

The goal wasn't to get them to move into the city. The goal was to make them more comfortable being tourists in the city. You get people comfortable being tourists, you start to make Detroit a destination. Once it's a destination, then people start wanting to move there.

Perception and culture change is a long process, but this tour took a bunch of skeptics and had them admit, "maybe it's not as bad as I thought it was." You multiply that time 3,000,000 people over 10-15 years and you start to see real change.

Everyone knows that large, unignorable chunks of Detroit is a dump. What most people don't know is that just among the parts that are nice, you can go for years and still not see everything. Inside Detroit publishes a list of over 130 restaurants that are within one square mile in the city center. 130. I show that list to my friends in the suburbs and it totally blows their minds. Next thing you know, they're wanting a monthly trip downtown to try a different restaurant every month.

It's slow, but it's better than "omg you in detroit? hope u have your kevlar jacket on lol" and such.

I agree the only you change people perceptions about the city is from to actaully get experience what it's like now. Not what remember 20 years ago or what they have heard it like. WDET a story on the great work Inside Detroit doign to change perceptions about the city

On a Saturday morning, a bus full of about 20 people mostly from the suburbs
and some former Metro Detroiters are being shown some of Detroit’s more
noteworthy places. The tour guide is Jeanette Pierce – co-founder of “Inside
Detroit”.

“We’re going to see the bad stuff… we’re going to talk about how we got
to where we are but more importantly what people are doing to solve some of
these problems and where we’re going in the future.”

Over the past five years, “Inside Detroit” has worked to give out-of-towners
as well as Metro Detroiters a new understanding and appreciation for the Motor
City. Pierce says when she started “Inside Detroit” the city tour business was
dead. Aside from some maps at places like Cobo Hall – there wasn’t a place where
groups could go to learn about Detroit from an insider.


“We wanted to tell the story of what it’s like to live here. To live in
the city, to be a part of it and give people that insider’s perspective of
things and there really wasn’t anybody doing that.”


Pierce says while she seeks to give out-of-towners an understanding of
Detroit she says her real goal is to get the locals to confront the perceptions
they have about the city

.

http://wdet.org/news/story/InsideDetroitFeature/

[rjk]

All I get when I click on the video link is the 20D20 logo and "page not found".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehtuAg3J7ZA

[313rd]

Here are the cliff notes from the videos that I watched.

Before People: I don't come to Detroit, except for the sporting events.
Reporter: Why not?
Before People: Everything I read and see from YOU MR. Reporter, is about shootings, carjackings, drugs, violence, fires, etc....

Reporter After: Did the bus trip change your mind?
After People: Wow, I didn't realize that Detroit had all of these awesome things.


How about these reporters start off the evening news with a couple of feel good stories. Websites for these new stations have their headlines show the "good" stuff. Maybe have a restaurant of the week, show new projects, historic neighborhoods, small shops, everything that is talked about on this forum when a poster ask....Where should I take a Visitor? There are hundreds of ideas that most on this Forum now about.

[ColonelMack]

Umm.. seems like they tried doing a positive story as 313rd suggests.. they are getting roasted for it on this board. Oy Vey!

[Roq]

Umm.. seems like they tried doing a positive story as 313rd suggests.. they are getting roasted for it on this board. Oy Vey!

Welcome to DetroitYes.

[313rd]

I'm all for the story. These 13 people all had the same mindset of the city.

Let me ask everyone on this board; of all your family and friends that live outside of the city limits, is there reactions the same as the report.

Personally I have relatives that would fit right in to what the report was all about.

I lived, worked and played in the city for years. I get tired of defending the city because of what the news reports.

[ResurgetCineribus]

I was formerly one of these people... and when I moved down here I was terrified. The stigma that had been reinforced everyday took nearly a year to wear off. Now I'm always trying to explain how great Detroit has been, and how we're mostly feed the bad news [[not just from new sources, but form any relative's personal stories too).

I compare it to if someone told me they choose to live in Baghdad I'd instantly think its dangerous and they're crazy. Though when it comes down to it, I really have no idea what it's like there. But Baghdad is across an ocean, these people live down the street, and that is the saddest part to me.

As cheesy as this news peice is, it's progress. Hopefully we can laugh one day at how taking suburbonites on a tour of Detroit was considered a querky and fun idea. Like taking children on a field trip.

[ResurgetCineribus]

...
Let me ask everyone on this board; of all your family and friends that live outside of the city limits, is there reactions the same as the report.
...

Yes. [[I guess I have to type at least 10 characters for it to post so here are some more words)

[Det_ard]

The bus tour seems like a nice idea to "safely" introduce people to a slice of Detroit they were not aware of. There are a lot of great things to see and do in Detroit.

On the other hand, I was on a bus tour of investment properties in metro Detroit. Getting to an apartment building on the east side of Detroit produced comments like "I had no idea it had gotten this bad" from a number of people who hadn't been in that area for a while.

These doses of reality can cut both ways.

[bartock]

I'm all for the story. These 13 people all had the same mindset of the city.

Let me ask everyone on this board; of all your family and friends that live outside of the city limits, is there reactions the same as the report.

Personally I have relatives that would fit right in to what the report was all about.

I lived, worked and played in the city for years. I get tired of defending the city because of what the news reports.

The infrastructure of Detroit that most of my family grew up in and knew looks nothing like the Detroit they see today. There are a few bells and whistles [[parts downtown/midtown, parts of SW), but every trip I've ever taken my father to into the city has been great sadness for the blight and condition of the neighborhoods he grew up in, followed by a mild impression of something new or something he had not seen. These stories are nice, but I think it is pretentious to assume that someone who hasn't come into the city in 30 years is going to think it's "better" or be surprised at how safe it is because some bus dumps them off at the Hard Rock Cafe. Celebrate the good, but be realisitic about the bad. It's bad! Ask the scores of people that are still moving out on a daily basis.

I don't know how I would feel if most of the neighborhood I grew up in and had all my fond memories of became blighted and burnt out, but I'm guessing that I wouldn't want to go back there, or through there, and I sure as hell wouldn't want someone judging me because I didn't. Sorry for wearing the black hat.

[Detroitnerd]

I love Detroit, and want us all to work together without prejudice, but ... honestly, what makes this so different from those tours of Moscow credulous Americans would get under Stalin? Here's all the good stuff. Pay no attention to those problems there. Just my 2 cents.

[corktownyuppie]

I love Detroit, and want us all to work together without prejudice, but ... honestly, what makes this so different from those tours of Moscow credulous Americans would get under Stalin? Here's all the good stuff. Pay no attention to those problems there. Just my 2 cents.

Big difference. No one is trying to hide the problems. You want the problems? Open up the Free Press, News, Michigan Chronicle, and Michigan Citizen. You want video footage? Hit Chanel 2, 4, or 7. Everyone knows all the problems.

What they're saying is, "You know about the problems. Now see the part you don't know about. Then make your own decision from there."

[corktownyuppie]

Let me ask everyone on this board; of all your family and friends that live outside of the city limits, is there reactions the same as the report.

Every single one. My last two roommates were the same way. And then when each of them moved in, their parents were livid. One set of parents actually came down and saw the place...changed their mind. The second set hasn't been down, and it doesn't look like they ever will.

[DetroitPole]

I guess it's only fair, because I avoid going to the suburbs if at all possible. I always feel like I'm going to die of boredom.

Not sure we need these kind of people. They're the flotsam of society. The lumpen proletariat. If you're afraid of simply going to any city [[outside of those covered by government travel warnings) in 2011 and you live in an industrial society, you're about on par intellectually with someone who is afraid of lunar eclipses as a sign that the gods are displeased.

Detroit has tried to cater to the suburbs for too long - tried for 40 years to turn downtown into one big Disneyland to try to lure those suburbanites back. Well it isn't going to happen - and Susan Lunchbox from Jerkwater Nowhere isn't going to save the city by going to a Tigers game once a year. The city doesn't exist to impress suburbanites any more than Chicago exists to impress people from Moscow.

There are plenty of educated suburbanites and others who understand that urban areas are vital to human society who support the city.

I had a jerk like this at my house about a year ago, relative of a friend. N-word this, Detroit-that. Why bother to try to rehabilitate such a worthless piece of shit? And he was some white-trash basement dweller. Who cares what people like that think? What's next? Try to rehabilitate the KKK and get them to come to the next NAACP rally?

[preserve]

I thought the segment was silly, but just maybe some of those folks will come back on their own, even if it is for a baseball game. It's something.

[Detroitnerd]

Big difference. No one is trying to hide the problems. You want the problems? Open up the Free Press, News, Michigan Chronicle, and Michigan Citizen. You want video footage? Hit Chanel 2, 4, or 7. Everyone knows all the problems.

What they're saying is, "You know about the problems. Now see the part you don't know about. Then make your own decision from there."

A person taking a tour of Uncle Joe's Moscow would already know the problems: the breadlines, the rationing, the cramped apartments. So they would take you on a tour of what's nice and designed to inspire wonder. In that regard, it's very much the same. I can't watch the video now, but I doubt very much the bus went to Mack & Bewick, Park & Sproat, or Dexter & Davison. So, naturally, that's just like a carefully orchestrated trip through Castro's Havana or Kim Jong-Il's Pyongyang.

[corktownyuppie]

I guess it's only fair, because I avoid going to the suburbs if at all possible. I always feel like I'm going to die of boredom.

Not sure we need these kind of people. They're the flotsam of society. The lumpen proletariat. If you're afraid of simply going to any city [[outside of those covered by government travel warnings) in 2011 and you live in an industrial society, you're about on par intellectually with someone who is afraid of lunar eclipses as a sign that the gods are displeased.

Detroit has tried to cater to the suburbs for too long - tried for 40 years to turn downtown into one big Disneyland to try to lure those suburbanites back. Well it isn't going to happen - and Susan Lunchbox from Jerkwater Nowhere isn't going to save the city by going to a Tigers game once a year. The city doesn't exist to impress suburbanites any more than Chicago exists to impress people from Moscow.

There are plenty of educated suburbanites and others who understand that urban areas are vital to human society who support the city.

I had a jerk like this at my house about a year ago, relative of a friend. N-word this, Detroit-that. Why bother to try to rehabilitate such a worthless piece of shit? And he was some white-trash basement dweller. Who cares what people like that think? What's next? Try to rehabilitate the KKK and get them to come to the next NAACP rally?

There are plenty of intelligent suburbanites that already know.
There are plenty of ignorant idiots that will never know.
There are millions of people who are open to knowing but haven't been given the right introduction.

We need those people. We need that money. We need that investment capital. We need that business. We need that political support. We need their cooperation. We need them to be invested in to helping solve our social problems instead of building taller walls or moving to 35 mile and Van Dyke.

It's finally happening. Let's push it along.