Arts, Beats and Bankruptcy Eats

Now that the city of Detroit has become the largest municipality in American history to file for bankruptcy (kind of — it's pending, there are lawsuits, etc. etc.), it's only natural that the rest of the country would suddenly become deeply interested in the people and places that make up Detroit.

But only kind of. Most the national media seems fixated on the decades of population loss, troubling crime rates and abandoned houses (not to mention the low, low prices of said empty houses), and doesn't pay attention to the sheer fact that hundreds of thousands of people still live and work here. Leave that to the local folks, who are eager to hop on the 'Detroit CAN Have Nice Things (and Here's a Listicle of Them)' train to bankruptcy-related page views. Call it the Bankruptcy Beat, if you will.

Among those nice things is, but of course, Detroit's not-bankrupt food and drink scene. Nicole Rupersberg of Eat it Detroit (and countless other local media matters) ran a piece on Fox News last Saturday detailing the city's "culinary and cultural gems."

Those include Supino Pizzeria, Russell Street Deli, Eastern Market, Great Lakes Coffee and Fountain Bistro, among others. (Turns out making a "Top Ten" list is a whole lot easier if you actually include multiple sub-points within each point.) Whether Fox News' typical audience of 45-and-up heartland conservatives is the prime audience for places like Green Dot Stables or Astro Coffee is a subject for an entirely different post altogether.

And in Sunday's Freep, CBS's Carol Cain makes the case for how Detroit should use this whole 'national attention' thing to bring in lots of visitors downtown. Her column includes thoughts from the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, whose latest campaign, "Detroit, America's Great Comeback City" hopes to convince the outside world to come downtown and see what's happening.

That's right, outside world — just because the city can't pay it's bills, doesn't mean you shouldn't come visit. Eat, drink and shop while the going it good. The renaissance is now, and business-booster extraordinaire Dan Gilbert will help take us all there.
·Detroit's Top 10 Culinary and Cultural Gems [FoxNews]
· Dan Gilbert On Detroit Bankruptcy [HuffPoDetroit]
· Detroit's Jewels Need Chance to Shine, Parade Exec Says [Freep]