Posted on 12/08/2003 8:43:08 AM PST by Dan from Michigan
Some see chilling effect in cities desperately striving to be hip
You can't mass market cool, Ypsilanti business owner says
Sunday, December 7, 2003
BY TOM GANTERT
News Staff Reporter
In the race to be cool, Jennifer Albaum has a message for Michigan cities looking to keep their young adults from running off to some other state.
"I don't think it is good for every city to be cool," said Albaum, a downtown Ypsilanti businesswoman who has been asked to speak at Gov. Jennifer Granholm's Cool Cities Initiative Conference on Thursday in Lansing. "Every city should be different."
Albaum sells art works, clothing and accessories created by local artists at her Michigan Avenue store, called Henrietta Farenheit. She opened it in downtown Ypsilanti because she considers it cool.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has said the state needs more "cool cities" as a way to attract the "creative class," 25- to 34-year-olds who have been migrating to other places.
But can cool be learned? Albaum believes it can't be manufactured.
"One of the things that really terrifies me about this conference is ... that these developers will go, 'OK. Cool is this, so let's make everything this way and jump on the bandwagon blindly,"' she said. "I think the minute you try to mass market cool and put a label of cool on something, you demystify it and it becomes de-cool. And the people you are trying to attract don't think it is cool anymore."
Just what is cool will be discussed at the conference, which will include the governor as well as developers, municipal planners and cultural experts.
The official definition appears to come from Richard Florida, author of a book on the subject and a speaker at the conference. The professor of economic development at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh wrote a national best-seller called "The Rise of the Creative Class and How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life." It is looked upon by municipal planners as the playbook on how to win the "cool cities" game now being played across the state.
It describes how communities can combine art, culture, commerce and community to create a thriving economy.
And everyone appears to have bought into it.
Take Flint, for example, which has lost population and had financial problems so bad that it lost control of its budget to a state financial manager in 2002.
Hardly cool.
Yet, hardly a lost cause.
The University of Michigan-Flint's Web site has a section declaring its mission - Making Flint Cool.
Flint searched its past to find a way to brighten up its downtown. It recently put up seven new iron arches that were replicas of the original decorative arches that were first lit up with lights in 1899.
The arches read: "Flint Vehicle City."
To Eugene Chan, a University of Michigan sophomore on Ann Arbor's Cool City Task Force, nicknames are important to being cool.
"Just to say the city has a nickname makes it a somewhat cool city," said Chan, who has lived in Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Toronto.
But slapping a nickname on the city will hardly earn a city the secret handshake to the coolness clubhouse.
Nor will just housing young people, Chan said.
Being a college town attracts young people. But that's just one piece of the cool puzzle.
Chan says what makes Ann Arbor's college scene cool is the blending of ages.
"It is actually integrated," Chan said. "Look at any coffee shop. StarBucks on State Street. It is these students studying. You can see residents talking about families and children and business people talking about their work. You see a whole variety of people doing their own thing in the same place."
Ann Arbor is recognized by Granholm as a cool city because of its vibrant downtown and cultural diversity. Some cities strive to be cool. Others have it thrust upon them.
Livingston County's community of Hell is cool, despite an estimated population of 80. Endless jokes have created a sense of humor essential to being cool. Hell business owner John Colone answers the phone, "Thanks for calling Hell." He slips a bad pun in nearly every sentence.
Sometimes the only thing unique about a town is its name.
And perhaps recognizing that is what "cool" is all about.
"I would rather use a term like unique and different rather than cool," Albaum said. "Cool is finding your niche."
1. Weather. Outside of the East Coast's tradition and Chicago, how many 'cool cities' are there in cold weather climates? Atlanta vs Detroit? Miami vs Flint?
2. Schools. Would you send your kids to Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, Lansing, Muskegon, or Saginaw public schools? Without good schools, when the creative class had kids, they are bolting if they can't afford sending their kids to private schools.
3. Crime. Detroit and Flint are almost always in the top 10 in crime each year.
4. Taxes. Lansing has its own income tax. So does Detroit. If it costs more in taxes to live in Lansing than it does in Holt, or Detroit than it does in Southfield, where would you live between the two?
5. Bureaucracy and corruption. Self explanatory.
Maybe Gov. Granholm's next conference can spoon-feed us our breakfast and help us get dressed in the morning.
Is there no longer any real or imaginary phenomenon in our society that doesn't suggest some bureaucracy-laden government initiative?
How about some "cool" tax cuts to attract businesses who do "cool" hiring and provide "cool" opportunities for the creative class?
Cool? Frigid, more like it.
"One of the things that really terrifies me about this conference is ... that these developers will go, 'OK. Cool is this, so let's make everything this way and jump on the bandwagon blindly,"' she said. "I think the minute you try to mass market cool and put a label of cool on something, you demystify it and it becomes de-cool. And the people you are trying to attract don't think it is cool anymore."
And one of Michigan's problems is that Chicago is no further than a trip "up north". Madison has the university, and Minneapolis/St Paul are the only cities for miles up there. Detroit's between Chicago and Cleveland.
Ann Arbor I can see(although they are pricing themselves out of the market). Grand Rapids isn't a bad city either and anchors West Michigan. Detroit? Can it reverse 30 years of decline? I hope so. I'm a country guy in sprawl central. I'd like to see the city stay in the city. :)
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