Photo courtesy Rethink Shinola
"Pioneer"
An article in Forbes makes a few claims that might raise eyebrows for some of the city's longtime residents. As a piece of business journalism, it's pretty overblown, essentially implying that the way to revitalize cities is to turn the downtowns of collapsing Midwestern towns into miniature replicas of elite coastal cities (no mention needed of the other 130 square miles of the city, thankyouverymuch.) Here are some choice quotes presented mostly without comment:
- "Companies like Detroit Denim, Nike, Whole Foods and Shinola are helping to revitalize the city of Detroit." (As would any new business, such as, say, Dank Budzz.)
- Ken Nisch, chairman of retail-design firm JGA, identifies three types of companies fueling Detroit’s urban retail renewal, among them Shinola, which he classes as "pioneers."
- "Nike has a new Nike Community Store in the city, which is one of its 6 urban-model stores. ... Nike asks each employee to volunteer time to local community causes."
- "In a city where 1 in 3 households depend on food stamps to feed their families, why would Whole Foods, a premium retailer often called “Whole Paycheck,” think Detroit was a place to plant a new store?" (No, the article doesn't mention the $4.2 million in city, state, and federal tax incentives and grants.)
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