709 replies to this topic

[GRDadof3]

Keith Schneider is writing about Grand Rapids in the NY Times again.  

http://www.nytimes.c...ml?ref=business

Authorities on urban policy say that Salt Lake and other cities in the West, big Eastern ones like Boston and New York and smaller ones, too, like Grand Rapids, Mich., and Charleston, S.C., have become incubators of environmental ideas and programs, with tangible results. Jobs and income are increasing. Central city populations are stabilizing or growing. Businesses are cropping up.

Gotta love it!

[concretepoem]

GRDadof3, on Nov 15 2007, 10:52 PM, said:

Keith Schneider is writing about Grand Rapids in the NY Times again.  

http://www.nytimes.c...ml?ref=business

Authorities on urban policy say that Salt Lake and other cities in the West, big Eastern ones like Boston and New York and smaller ones, too, like Grand Rapids, Mich., and Charleston, S.C., have become incubators of environmental ideas and programs, with tangible results. Jobs and income are increasing. Central city populations are stabilizing or growing. Businesses are cropping up.

Gotta love it!

That is a nice mention for GR in the NYT. I guess being in the Eastern Time Zone qualifies GR as an 'Eastern city'.

[Kib]

More props for GR in the 11/26/07 Newsweek.  The piece covers the end of the "Starchitect" (big name architects) and cites the Grand Rapids Art Museum (Kulapat Yantrasast), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver (David Adjaye) and New York City's "New Museum" (Tokyo's SANAA firm) as examples great work being done by the new generation of global architects.

[Sailor]

Kib, on Nov 20 2007, 05:26 PM, said:

More props for GR in the 11/26/07 Newsweek.  The piece covers the end of the "Starchitect" (big name architects) and cites the Grand Rapids Art Museum (Kulapat Yantrasast), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver (David Adjaye) and New York City's "New Museum" (Tokyo's SANAA firm) as examples great work being done by the new generation of global architects.

Here's a link to the Newsweek article:  
http://www.newsweek.com/id/71012

[highwayguy]

It's nice to see Grand Rapids mentioned in an article for once without "Michigan" or "Mich." after it.  It makes Grand Rapids sound more like a city that you should already know what state it's in.  

[GRDadof3]

OK, I really have to cut the writer at WorldChanging some slack now, that I mentioned HERE earlier this month.   He actually came to Grand Rapids to do a story the next week and really was impressed with all of West Michigan:

WorldChanging - Meet me in Grand Rapids

Nice!

[tamias6]

One the biggest things GR needs to do is sever its ties to a floundering state by establishing it own identity. All this good PR is exactly what GR needs to make that happen. So I say keep the good press coming.

[concretepoem]

tamias6, on Nov 23 2007, 01:20 AM, said:

One the biggest things GR needs to do is sever its ties to a floundering state by establishing it own identity. All this good PR is exactly what GR needs to make that happen. So I say keep the good press coming.

I've got to believe the writer of this piece, from the Op-Ed page of today's New York Times, is using sarcasism to make his point about fixing our economy...but maybe he's serious ...in any event he's gone ahead and done the dis-service of linking GR to Flint, Detroit, and Lansing.

http://www.nytimes.c...on/25lynch.html

[Veloise]

concretepoem, on Nov 25 2007, 03:10 PM, said:

I've got to believe the writer of this piece, from the Op-Ed page of today's New York Times, is using sarcasism to make his point about fixing our economy...but maybe he's serious ...in any event he's gone ahead and done the dis-service of linking GR to Flint, Detroit, and Lansing.

http://www.nytimes.c...on/25lynch.html

"... So I say, come home, Erik Prince! Say yes to Michigan! We need you and your iron-pumping, shaved-head, sun-glassed, special-ops sorts back in Lansing and Detroit, Flint and Grand Rapids — guys who get by on guts and having God on their side to wrest Michigan’s fiscal woes from the dithering public servants who are traveling outside the Green Zone here. ..."

Thomas Lynch is a man of letters who's written about being a mortician, along with poetry (various topics) and other works. I am not sure how the quoted paragraph is viewed as being a "dis-service" to GR. (The whole piece beats up on Erik Prince.)

[concretepoem]

Sarcasm aside, Lynch's lumping GR in with Lansing, Detroit, Flint as cities suffering from "Michigan’s fiscal woes" and run by "dithering public servants" clearly underscores the point Tamias6 made earlier in this thread..."One the biggest things GR needs to do is sever its ties to a floundering state by establishing it own identity."

[Rizzo]

Guilt by association, I suppose. If Michigan was a boat, Grand Rapids would be the life raft, but barely escaping the suction of the sinking ship. Has the raft drifted enough from the impending wake?

Edited by Rizzo, 26 November 2007 - 07:29 PM.

[GRDadof3]

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is writing about the new Art Museum:

Going Green a great thing in Grand Rapids

I wouldn't equate "green" with "oatmeal".  

[metrogrkid]

mifunboy, on Jul 13 2007, 02:47 PM, said:

A few thoughts:

1) As someone that moved here from Southeast Michigan for a job I am very happy with everything out here. . . .

With all due respect, we love having you settle into your new growing metro area, but WE ARE NOT OUT anywhere.  If anything we are OVER HERE or IN BETWEEN (i.e. - Chicago and Detroit) but not OUT.  The very thought of Detroit being IN and GR being OUT (as in "Outstate" as opposed to the accurate "West State") just continues the tired old Detroit-centric thought processes of the past.

Appreciated GR References:  OVER HERE; WEST STATE; MICHIGAN'S WEST COAST; IN BETWEEN

Hated GR References:  Outstate; Out There

[suydam]

metrogrkid, on Dec 19 2007, 03:03 PM, said:

With all due respect, we love having you settle into your new growing metro area, but WE ARE NOT OUT anywhere.  If anything we are OVER HERE or IN BETWEEN (i.e. - Chicago and Detroit) but not OUT.  The very thought of Detroit being IN and GR being OUT (as in "Outstate" as opposed to the accurate "West State") just continues the tired old Detroit-centric thought processes of the past.

Appreciated GR References:  OVER HERE; WEST STATE; MICHIGAN'S WEST COAST; IN BETWEEN

Hated GR References:  Outstate; Out There

I don't mind it.
Chicagoans call us "Up there" and that doesn't bother me either.
We're not "IN BETWEEN," as that distinction is reserved for Kalamazoo in my opinion.
Anything (even "Out there") that separates us from Detroit is ok by me.  

Michigan is "Detroit-centric" because more than half the state's population lives under there. (How's that?)
It's a fact of life.  New York is NYC centric.  Illinois is Chicago centric.  Those states both have other cities that are great, our size, and more ignored by their big brothers than we are.

[GRguy]

When I lived in Atlanta, it did not even recognize that it was in Georgia, much less the South.

[Cabot]

I don’t know if I would put Detroit in the same basket as Chicago and NYC.  The fact is Detroit City has been shrinking since 1950.  We need to start thinking of this relationship more like a Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

[jczeranna]

Cabot, on Dec 20 2007, 10:13 AM, said:

I don’t know if I would put Detroit in the same basket as Chicago and NYC.  The fact is Detroit City has been shrinking since 1950.  We need to start thinking of this relationship more like a Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

I lived in Detroit, in-fact I grew up over there. I can say with absolute certainty that Grand Rapids is way more of a city than Detroit can ever hope to be. Sure Detroit gets most the national and international press for cities that reside in this Great State but the truth is it's a dying city whos only hope for economical upturn is in the hands of 3 casinos.

I don't however think that comparing our relationship to Detroit with Philadelphia and Pittsburgh's is entirely accurate. Grand Rapids is a new kind of city, a modern city with modern thinking. A city with a future. A city who's residents still have the power to shape and mold its culture. Detroit's History has been written and the city is in ruins. Grand Rapids is a City with hope in a state that desperately needs it.

I say keep the good press coming for my adopted home and hope that we can keep distancing ourselves from the black cloud that is Detroit.

Edited by jczeranna, 20 December 2007 - 10:20 AM.

[Cliff19336]

jczeranna, on Dec 20 2007, 10:17 AM, said:

I lived in Detroit, in-fact I grew up over there. I can say with absolute certainty that Grand Rapids is way more of a city than Detroit can ever hope to be. Sure Detroit gets most the national and international press for cities that reside in this Great State but the truth is it's a dying city whos only hope for economical upturn is in the hands of 3 casinos.

I don't however think that comparing our relationship to Detroit with Philadelphia and Pittsburgh's is entirely accurate. Grand Rapids is a new kind of city, a modern city with modern thinking. A city with a future. A city who's residents still have the power to shape and mold its culture. Detroit's History has been written and the city is in ruins. Grand Rapids is a City with hope in a state that desperately needs it.

I say keep the good press coming for my adopted home and hope that we can keep distancing ourselves from the black cloud that is Detroit.

In the words of Mark Twain, "news of my death is greatly exagerated".

[metrogrkid]

suydam, on Dec 20 2007, 05:29 AM, said:

I don't mind it.
Chicagoans call us "Up there" and that doesn't bother me either.
We're not "IN BETWEEN," as that distinction is reserved for Kalamazoo in my opinion.
Anything (even "Out there") that separates us from Detroit is ok by me.  

Michigan is "Detroit-centric" because more than half the state's population lives under there. (How's that?)
It's a fact of life.  New York is NYC centric.  Illinois is Chicago centric.  Those states both have other cities that are great, our size, and more ignored by their big brothers than we are.

My point is far more forward thinking than that.  Michigan is becoming more like a Texas or Ohio or California (states with multiple big cities) than a state with one overarching megalopolis like Illinois or New York (even though Albany and Syracuse make NY State a grey area argument).  I do my personal best to inspire thought and maybe even paradigm shifting pertaining to thoughts about Michigan moving from a One Metro state to now a Two Metro state (and eventually a Three Metro state when Traverse City kicks in).

Cabot, on Dec 20 2007, 09:13 AM, said:

I don’t know if I would put Detroit in the same basket as Chicago and NYC.  The fact is Detroit City has been shrinking since 1950.  We need to start thinking of this relationship more like a Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

See, now YOU get it.  G'on wit' 'cha bad self!  

Edited by metrogrkid, 20 December 2007 - 02:03 PM.

[NorthCoast]

Not really hyping Grand Rapids or anything but the front page article from the GR Press the other day about the man whose search for his biological mother lead him right to the Lowe's Home Improvement store where he worked (Plainfield Twp) was one of the cover story on my AT&T Yahoo! News homepage.