Daily Detroit News Byte

Happy Monday, and welcome to a new week of your Daily Detroit. Today, Jer talks about an eventful past week spent at the Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island, filling us in on some of the things he came away with beyond just the headlines about no-fault auto insurance reform. Specifically, it's becoming clear that Detroit's comeback needs a lot more juice (read: money — and residents) just to come up to par with the competition. He also does the math on the so-called 7.2, the informal name for Detroit's downtown and adjacent district that have seen most investment lately, and the costs to fix Michigan's decrepit roads. Also, an interesting post pushes the idea that the cost $10 a month per Michigan driver on average to raise $1 billion for the roads. Elswhere, we cover: Could the Regional Transit Authority be revived in a scaled-back version? Its board chairman dropped a hint recently. [Michigan Matters] Mortgages hit a decade high in Detroit in April, but they're still well below what they should

Eastern Market is going through a lot of change. Shops are closing or moving. New land owners are moving in. Companies who have been in the market a long time need to expand. And at the center of it all is the Eastern Market Corporation (now the Eastern Market Partnership. Their CEO, Dan Carmody, saw these changes coming and has a plan. We talk about the changing neighborhood, the future vision, and how he defines the soul and authenticity of Eastern Market they're looking to protect. It's an interview that anyone who cares about the market that's beloved by Detroiters near and far should give a listen. Also today from the Mackinac Policy Conference: Gretchen Whitmer signed into law auto insurance changes. But is it reform, or incremental progress? Detroit will still have the highest car insurance rates in the nation, and Michigan, the second-highest. And, there's a $200 million bond proposal coming to pay for eliminating all blight in the city of Detroit by 2024. Thanks for listening!

Just in time for the Mackinac Policy Conference, the Center for Michigan and its Bridge Magazine have a new report out all about Michigan's abysmal roads. It's titled Fixing Michigan's Road Mess: The Unclear Path Ahead. The report is the result of convening more than 3,200 residents across the state to talk about the state of our roads. It found broad agreement, unsurprisingly, that our roads are in terrible shape. But it found no consensus whatsoever on the issue of how to pay for repairing them — or how much we should spend repairing them. On this episode, we spoke with Bridge Magazine's public engagement reporter, Allie Schmidt, about the report and some of its findings. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made "fixing the damn roads" a centerpiece of her successful election campaign last year, and with auto insurance reform edging closer to completion, the issue figures to loom over the Mackinac Policy Conference this week on Mackinac Island. Thanks for listening to Daily Detroit. If you like what you're hearing, tell

Spring is here! It's the time of year where more people start to get out and about. Because of that, bar and restaurant concepts are starting to get into swing and get some attention. For today's episode, our man about town Devon O'Reilly stops by the studio to talk about what's hot around Detroit. Whether it's a new bar on Bagley, a Mexican place named Peso, or winery that uses Detroit-grown grapes called Detroit Vineyards (or a variety of other stops), we get into what's worth going out to now that there's some sun and warmth. Thanks for listening! Don't forget to tell a friend about the Daily Detroit podcast. It's the best way to grow the show.

The Detroit Grand Prix is an annual event that brings nearly a hundred thousand people to the island, national television coverage and some charity dollars through their Grand Prixmere fundraiser. But there's a group of concerned citizens and park goers who say that the price paid in damage to the park and restricted access is too high. Today on the show, we talk about this with three members of Belle Isle Concern - Angela Lugo-Thomas, Sandra Novacek and Michael Betzold. What do you think? Get in touch at dailydetroit -at- gmail.com. Also in the news: -Chris Ilitch admitted in interviews that their timelines for the controversial District Detroit were "aggressive." Crains. Detroit News Investigation. Freep. -Juwan Howard is the new University of Michigan Basketball coach -And Detroit Tigers legend Willie Horton got a street named after him in his childhood neighborhood Like what we're doing? We're people powered. Join our Patreon membership.

Welcome to the Hump Day edition of your Daily Detroit, in which we run down the news that businessman Roger Penske is pouring $5 million into the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood on Detroit's east side. It's part of the city's Strategic Neighborhood Fund. Jer also has a conversation today with Rob Sadow, the co-founder and head of Scoop Technologies. It's a carpooling app that connects drivers, riders and designs routes. They've teamed up with the Bedrock family of companies to help employees ease their commuting and parking woes. Could carpooling be a thing in Detroit? Pretty interesting question in a region without comprehensive mass transit and long commutes, often to a central downtown. We also discuss two other bits of news: A Detroit charter school connected to an investment fund run by tennis star Andre Agassi is closing, another example of Michigan's dysfunctional charter school system [Chalkbeat Detroit] And Detroit could get a whopping 60 new liquor licenses [Crain's] Thanks as always for listening

Baker's Keyboard Lounge and, more recently, the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe in Grosse Pointe Farms are famed venues for jazz in Detroit. But another venue played a huge role in that scene for decades: the Blue Bird Inn. Located at 5021 Tireman on the city's west side, the Blue Bird Inn was a major nexus of Detroit's swinging post-war, pre-Motown jazz scene, a black-owned business that hosted the likes of Charlie Parker, Donald Byrd, John Coltrane and Miles Davis and playing a role in developing local talent like Yusef Lateef as well. It's been closed and abandoned for years. But after being purchased recently by the Detroit Sound Conservancy, it's poised to make a comeback. On today's episode, we speak with DSC founder and director Carleton Gholz all about the past, present and future of the Blue Bird Inn. The nonprofit plans to seek more grant funding to renovate the buiding, with the goal of eventually reopening it as a jazz club and housing its own headquarters there as well. Thanks for listening to Daily Detroit.

Welcome to a Car-a-Palooza edition of your Daily Detroit. Today, we dive into the news that Dan "Dantroit" Gilbert is lining up a petition drive effort to force the issue of reforming Michigan's no-fault auto insurance system. If successful, it could allow Republican lawmakers, who already have passed essentially the same proposal, to approve it with simple majority votes. Will this ratchet up pressure on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and lawmakers to cut a deal? Staying with cars, Ford employees came to work Monday to an email in their inboxes from CEO Jim Hackett outlining plans to whack 7,000 white-collar job cuts by September. And we discuss Michigan Auto Law's list of the most dangerous intersections for 2018. We run down some non-cars stories as well: The University of Michigan might open a manufacturing R&D center in Detroit … on the #FailJail site? [Crain's] Livonia could get Aloft and Element hotels as part of a proposed six-story development. [Hometown Life] Madonna University broke ground o

Detroit's had a long journey since it was founded as a frontier outpost by the French. There's been a lot of books about more recent Detroit history. Think 1900 forward. But not so many that look at the first years of Detroit, ones that were formative to the city we know today. R.J. King — an award-winning journalist, author and editor of dBusiness — joined me in the studio today to talk about his new book, "Detroit: Engine of America." From the description: As the populace sputtered and grew, they developed the machinery and skilled trades that produced in volume wagons, stagecoaches, steamships, hearths, locomotives, boxcars, furniture, stoves, equipment, marine engines, pharmaceutical drugs, and finally, the horseless carriage. Detroit's grit and brawn ignited what is the first city in the Midwest, ingenuity and self-sufficiency thrust it on the world stage. R.J. King So if you're into Detroit history and the "how" of Detroit happened and found success, have a listen. If you're interested in the book, you

On today's episode, we speak with Casper van Alfen and Joanna van der Leun of the Motown Movement. That's the organization founded by architecture students from the Netherlands that bought an abandoned home in Detroit for $1,000 and have been fixing it up with the help of local nonprofits and with the goal of making it into a model of accessible and affordable environmental sustainability. Van Alfen and Van der Leun are students at Delft University of Technology in Delft, which is about halfway between the Dutch cities of The Hague and Rotterdam. They talk about how sustainability fits with an impoverished city where many residents worry about more fundamental economic issues of survival, what they've learned about Detroit since they've been here, and some setbacks they've suffered along the way. And yes, the project has even survived an arson fire. Appropriate for something in Detroit where our motto is, "We hope for better things; it shall arise from the ashes." It's an interesting conversation about an int

Gerrymandering — the practice of drawing state legislative and congressional districts to favor one political party over another — is back in the news. Republican state lawmakers are proposing measures to weaken efforts to overhaul the process by which these maps are drawn. That's despite a recent judicial order to design new district maps for 2020 and voters' approval last fall of Proposal 2, which transfers the process to a redistricting commission. But old habits die hard, as they say. So Jer talks Gerrymandering. Also on today's show: The hulking McLouth Steel plant on the Detroit River in Trenton is now a federal Superfund priority site, making it eligible for federal dollars for environmental cleanup. Authorities raided the home of Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith over possible misuse of public forfeiture funds. Developers recently broke ground on the construction of the new Oakland County Business Center, which will rise on the site of what is currently the Summit Place Mall in Waterford Township.

Welcome back to the week! There's a lot in our latest episode. Let's dive in. - The Ilitch organization will receive another $74 million dollars in taxpayer subsidies for the District Detroit.  - John Beilein is leaving his job as coach of the University of Michigan Men's basketball team to take over as head coach of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers. - Hazel Park is set to get a new mixed-use mid-rise development on the site of a former CVS and Movie M ania store on John R as part of a vision to create a walkable downtown district.  - A new microbrewery might be coming to Livonia. - The Hello Kitty mobile cafe is coming back to Metro Detroit, this time in a new location. - Freep Columnist Rochelle Riley is joining Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan's administration to promote and grow arts and culture in the city. - And, we talk about the preview of the beautiful Monarch Club on the roof of the historic Metropolitan Building.

Today we're taking a look at a company that's making high-end leather goods right here in the city of Detroit, putting Detroiters and veterans to work. We're talking about Pingree Detroit, based just about a block away from the well-known Shinola. Pingree is a worker-owned company formed as an L3C — a special type of company that puts both the bottom line and the social mission of the company first. And when there's profits, 77 cents of every dollar is shared with the workers. Pingree founder Jarret Schlaff and our Sven Gustafson toured the facility and talked about the project, the sacrifices made to create a worker-first company, the ups and downs of business and the optimistic view Jarret has for the future. The company was founded after meeting jobless veterans in the city. You can find out more about Pingree and shop their shoes, bags and other stuff at their website. Love what we're doing at Daily Detroit? Support us on Patreon. Having reader support allows us to tell the on-the-ground stories like this

Como's, a longtime mainstay of downtown Ferndale, has been reimagined by Chef Zack Sklar. The chef is doing something really cool in elevating pizza and having some creative takes on some old favorites. But, really, how good is it out of the gate?  Join us on the podcast for an unbiased first look at the place with one of our contributors, Randy Walker. Please don't treat this conversation as a full review as places need some time to get their legs under them, but it is one of the hottest tickets in Ferndale.  And yes, you should check this place out. Also, Ferndale has some great patios. We talk about those, too.  We have pictures of the tasty dining adventure up on Daily Detroit.  If you enjoy what we do here, be sure to support us on Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/dailydetroit.  

Good Wednesday afternoon, and welcome to a super Detroit-y edition of your Daily Detroit. Today, we walked over to the Avenue of Fashion, where Mayor Mike Duggan came to speak about the streetscape redevelopment of a roughly 1-mile section of Livernois to calm traffic and make the commercial district more attractive to pedestrians and, hopefully, prosperous to business owners. Construction crews were already at work demolishing the 13-year-old median added by now-imprisoned former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Plans call for narrowing traffic to one lane in each direction, adding 24-foot-wide sidewalks to encourage more outdoor cafe seating, and adding sidewalk-grade bike lanes separated from the road by parallel parking spaces. All good. But reporters at the groundbreaking announcement wanted to talk about the controversy swirling around Duggan and his ties to the Make Your Date nonprofit. The Freep reports today that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is looking into the nonprofit's fundraising activities. So

Detroit: A great bike city, or the best bike city? We dive into that superwonky argument in the wake of Detroit's abysmal showing in PeopleForBike's annual rankings of the Best Cities For Bikes in 2019. Detroit scored a lowly 1.6 out of 5 stars, the same as 2018, despite all the work that's been done to install protected bike lanes, bike traffic counters and other bike-friendly infrastructure improvements. Ferndale and Ann Arbor both scored higher, at 3.0 stars each. But the organization's methodology spurred a rebuttal piece by Todd Scott over at Detroit Greenways Coalition. Who's right? We talk about it. Also on today's show: Detroit's new streetlights are already going dark, adding to a familiar narrative about the city with broken streetlights. Republicans on Tuesday approved a bill that would reform Michigan's no-fault auto insurance system, despite objections from those radical leftists at the Michigan Health and Hospital Association. The bill now heads to the state House. And we offer our suggestio

What is it with Greektown and the rise in shootings lately? We talk about that in the wake of another shooting late Sunday that injured two, though not critically. For years, the retail district was an example of safety and vibrancy in an otherwise dead downtown, but even though it's still technically a vibrant neighborhood — albeit much less Greek than it used to be — it's increasingly a scene of violent crime. Here's what else we're talking about on today's show: Longtime Red Wings GM Ken Holland is leaving Detroit for the Edmonton Oilers It looks like the city of Detroit has managed to assemble all the land needed for the new Jeep plant on the east side Beloved eatery Russell Street Deli is on the way out of Eastern Market in September following a dispute with their new landlord, Sanford Nelson We eulogize former Grande Ballroom owner and Detroit '60s counterculture figurehead Russ Gibb The first new U.S. built Great Lakes freighter in nearly 40 years is being built at a shipyard in Wisconsin And we run t

Between hiring a new head coach to replacing the turf surface at Keyworth, and preparing to embark on its first-ever season of professional soccer, 2019 promises to be the biggest, most important season yet for Detroit City FC, which plays its final preseason friendly on Saturday at the Flint City Bucks. On today's episode, we talk with soccer journalist, Outer Drive podcast co-host and Daily Detroit contributor Fletcher Sharpe about the Rouge's roster moves to date, the new coach, Trevor James, and some of the other changes fans will see at Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck.

The HBO show "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" last week turned its lens on the District Detroit, the Ilitch family's mostly unrealized plan to redevelop 50 blocks as a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood between downtown and Midtown. Predictably, it did not go well for the Ilitches, who received $324 million in taxpayer assistance in exchange for what so far is the Little Caesars Arena, a Kid Rock restaurant and a couple dozen parking lots. Being opinionated on the subject, we talk about the episode, plus: 6:05 – An update on the progress of the old State Fairgrounds 6:45 – We break down the recent ruling from three federal judges that Michigan must redraw 34 congressional and legislative districts by Aug. 1 because they were unconstitutionally designed to favor Republicans. 8:07 – Jer interviews Detroit historian and civil rights author Ken Coleman about the life and legacy of Judge Damon J. Keith, a longtime federal judge and civil rights champion from Detroit who died Sunday at age 96. Also, as a heads up, ou

Today is a conversation with Howard Hertz, previewing the Detroit Music Awards that are happening this Friday. The annual event has been a lynchpin of the Detroit music scene for years. Hertz is not only the president of the foundation that puts on the event, he's an entertainment lawyer with a roster of clients that's a who's who of Detroit music. Here's that conversation with Sven Gustafson.