DETROIT (AP) — A plan to spur economic growth in a northwest
Detroit neighborhood was announced Tuesday during the 2014 Clinton
Global Initiative America meeting in Denver.
The Motor City
Project will highlight using available resources like manpower, vacant
land and empty buildings to make the area attractive to potential and
current residents seeking to start their own businesses.
It also
will help new arrivals work through cumbersome city codes and other red
tape to operate home- and neighborhood-based businesses, World Policy
Institute Senior Fellow Greg Lindsay told The Associated Press.
Lindsay
said zoning rules in many U.S. cities make it difficult for
entrepreneurs to operate out of their homes or garages, but such
"microenterprises" have been successful in poorer countries.
He
pointed to the practice of salvaging wood, countertops and other
materials from abandoned houses in Detroit and selling it to retrofit
homes.
"That’s what happens every day in places like Nairobi,"
Lindsay said. "They are starved for resources. People realize everything
they have is an asset."
The Detroit neighborhood chosen is a mix
of homes and small manufacturing. It is anchored by Focus: HOPE, a
social and economic services agency.
As part of the project, a
so-called Resilience Center will be created to attract "urban
homesteaders and migrants from other neighborhoods, cities and countries
to relocate to the area," the World Policy Institute said in a release.
Staff also will work with entrepreneurs to find funding and other support for their ventures.
"We
want to create this pop-up community center where we would bring in new
arrivals and help them acclimate to their conditions," Lindsay said.
The
two-year project is in the design and development phase and is starting
with in-kind contributions. It hopes to expand with partners from the
Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative. The initiative was
establish in 2005 by former President Bill Clinton. It brings together
foundations, business and government leaders to develop solutions to
challenges impacting people around the world.