Grandmont Rosedale : Features

Our new series on Metro Detroit's ethnic and cultural history, written by local writer and historian Mickey Lyons, begins with the first Detroiters, Native Americans.

You can find a little bit of summer in Michigan tomatoes grown in the winter.

Bradford Frost, director of Capital Impact Partners' Detroit program and all around great person, passed away this week. Model D is republishing an essay he wrote in 2015 to honor his memory. 

There are many common misconceptions about who lives in affordable housing and what impact those communities have on neighborhoods. But the reality is that affordable housing increases stability, support, and mobility to a neighborhood and city.

In a conversation with Model D, Maurice Cox, Director of the City of Detroit's Planning Department, says he'll put extra emphasis on bike infrastructure across the city. 

38 percent of Detroiters, and 63 percent of its low-income residents, have no home broadband. But people and organizations are helping Detroiters access the internet, and teaching them how to use it.

Before we launch into another year of stories about the issues, people, and programs that impact Detroit kids, we wanted to revisit the best-read 2016 Michigan Nightlight stories from Model D.

Detroit property owners are going green to save some green on their water bills. 

Michigan tree farms are the place to make Christmas memories and part of Michigan's growing agritourism economy. 

The bioswale at Stein Park was designed and built with high school students from the Detroit Institute of Technology to capture water from roadways and infiltrate it into the ground, keeping it out of the city's sewer system.

Illegal dumping, abandoned buildings, and other sources of trash are serious problems in Detroit. Fortunately, multiple businesses and nonprofits are coming to the rescue by turning the city's refuse into something useful. 

As development ramps up in Detroit, understanding what lies beneath our feet is key to the future.

Entrepreneurship programs across the city engage youth in hands-on, place-based entrepreneurial training, equipping them to both launch their own businesses and use entrepreneurial thinking to solve problems.

Despite all the time required to start and run a business, mother entrepreneurs often do so because it counterintuitively allows them to get closer to their family. 

Fermentation is an ancient form of preservation that's being popularized for its unique flavor and health properties. Many food businesses in Detroit are likewise finding new uses for this old technique.