[infinitebattery]

The Madison Block[1] has a lot to do with the growth startup-wise in Downtown Detroit. Also, there are more and more meetups going on. For example, Detroit Soup[2] is a growing event and calls people to join, pay $5 for soup, and vote on a project that will benefit the city (people present their projects). Even MHacks, the premier college hackathon run by students from the University of Michigan, was held in the Quicken Loans headquarters this spring. I have also been to a few meetups such as one from the Detroit NodeJS group, and the Detroit Drones group- the meetup groups are active and growing.

The city has had its ups and downs, but things are on the rise. Take it from someone who has lived near the city for 17 years. I think there are a lot of assumptions about Detroit, but there are a few things that are true: We have a 14.5% unemployment rate, a post industrial culture (culture of employees expecting to work for the Big Three immediately, instead of a culture of entrepreneurs), a financial problem, and poor Detroit schools (however the schools in suburbs are much better).

I think that the combination of a lot of opportunity, and recent support from people like Dan Gilbert gave Detroit a huge start with the Madison Block, and that is the reason that people look at Detroit and what is happening in the city now.

1. http://www.madisonblock.com/

2. http://detroitsoup.com/