One of my least tapped categories is "Unemployment porn," or articles about how someone exceptional used an unorthodox idea to create a career - such as getting rich selling crafts on Etsy. The idea was inspired by Penelope Trunk's "Mommy Porn" theme of hyping oddball parenting strategies as trends that make it look like working mothers can have full-time careers without sacrificing on the family side.
That brings us today's David Whitford article on Fortune.com about how Detroit made use of an obsolete factory by turning it into an artists community, which could be the first example of an entry in redevelopment porn.
As the former headquarters of Murray Corp., which made bodies for Ford in the glory days, this plant, too, is inhabited by ghosts. Here, however, the ghosts share quarters with some spirited company: a menagerie of glass blowers, cabinetmakers, architects, seamstresses, a sneaker designer, and three women who teach pole dancing, among others -- 160 small-business tenants in all, most of them operating on the frontlines of Detroit's burgeoning creative economy.
I'm happy to see this as a success story. One area where Americans are infinitely creative is making use of real estate when zoning laws and other restrictions are out of the way. Let's just not hype urban artist communities as an answer to revitalizing rust-belt cities.
This sort of thing worked wonders for Jerome Arizona, a former mining community that has become the Northampton of its region - but for a city the size of Detroit, it's a drop in the bucket.
Whitford, to his credit, acknowledges this in the story as well as noting that the building is a private enterprise and not part of an ill-advised top down redevelopment plan.
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