University of Michigan graduate Vahe Tazian, an attorney who left Metro Detroit in 2009 to work in Stamford, Conn., writes in the Free Press about interest in Detroit among colleagues and friends.
I've heard Detroiters described as "genuine" and "resilient." And I've met people who want to visit, as they think the city has hit "rock bottom" and are interested in seeing its transformation.
In a guest commentary, Tazian tells about coming back to Detroit recently on business with a native New Yorker.
As I frequently do with visitors, I provided a tour of the city and the surrounding areas. I showed him the good and the bad. . . .
To his surprise, he saw a central business district with new buildings and clean sidewalks, quietly emerging as a home to fledgling tech companies. He witnessed the transformation of Corktown and signs of artists and filmmakers -- the vital engines of gentrification -- relocating from Brooklyn and Los Angeles to capitalize on the city's affordable housing -- and evidence of suburbanites and real-estate developers from New York, L.A. and Miami spending millions to buy property and gamble on Detroit's resurgence.
During his flight here, the 38-year-old lawyer writes, a seatmate from Manhattan said she was using vacation time to check out Detroit. "Rarely do I meet people as proud about where they're from as those from Detroit," he quotes the real estate associate as saying. "So I decided it was worth a visit."
