This is your last chance to vote Detroit, to give your city the recognition it deserves as TitleTown, USA from ESPN.  At 6pm Monday, July 28th, on ESPN SportsCenter the winner will be announced.  Vote here, vote often, and watch to see us win!

With ESPN making it official, Detroit has been named one of the top 20 sports cities in the US vying for the official tag of TitleTown, USA.  All Creative Class activists are encouraged to head for Comerica Park this Sunday, July 13 at 11am to be a part of the filming of the finalist episode for ESPN Sportscenter.  You have a chance to celebrate one of the D’s many strengths, along with fellow sports enthusiasts.  For more info, check this Detroiter Online article.

We’re not gonna take it!  No!  We’re not gonna take it! We’re not gonna take it, anymore!!!  For you Beastie Boy fans old enough, those words may have been your adolescent right of passage, but we are re-adapting them for the ‘D’!  Let’s all join hands, sing Kum-bye-ya and stop the negative press on Detroit!  Naw, forget that!  Just click and digg this article to raise the positive awareness on Detroit!  Thanks to 313rd for getting the movement going!  Go HERE to see the top ten list of Detroit goodness, and add more!

Coming soon! DetroitMakeItHere.com: a user-centric information and
networking hub for creatives in Southeast Michigan.

The Web site, which will launch this spring, is powered by Crain’s
Detroit Business and an element of Detroit Renaissance Inc.’s $80
million Road to Renaissance economic revitalization plan. Detroit
Renaissance is the founding sponsor of the site.

The site will identify the region’s creative assets and map them,
present news and information about and important to the creative
economy, provide a forum for social networking and a space for
user‑generated content. It will also feature a calendar for creative
business events, as well as career and business related resources for
creative professionals.

This Web site will be a unique resource for the region, providing
detailed content for creative users that does not currently exist. Rest
assured the creative community will be fully immersed in the development
of the site. In fact, there is a group of nearly 40 local creatives who
are serving on the site’s advisory committee.

Keep visiting the CreateDetroit site for the launch date!!

Corrections and updates to February 22 post on Creative Cities Summit from Eric Cedo, CEO, BrainGain Marketing:  “The event will be held at the Renaissance Center. The first Creative Cities Summit was held in Tampa 4 years ago. The one referenced in Philadelphia is not affiliated with Peter Kagayama, Creative Cities Production or Cool Cities. We’ll be adding new functionality to the site in coming months. If you are on Facebook you can join the CCS2.0 group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8705139076. Also, Peter’s company is Creative Cities Productions - formerly Sextant Marketing.”

The Downtown Detroit Partnership is making a video tomorrow, February 29th, to be shown at it’s annual meeting on March 17th and for the general promotion and excitement of everyone. The intent of the video is to characterize life in the ‘D’ for the 21 to 34 year old denizen of the Detroit Urban Jungle. The video will be a ‘day in the life’ that shows the fun work, the after hours events, and the cool loft lifestyle available to those willing to try downtown on for size. You can download the PDF that explains the concept Lets Meet Downtown, and you can contact Bob Rossback, the guy spearheading this project, bob@rossbach.tv or call him at 313-402-9831.

Thanks to Fusion Detroit for the heads up.

Detroit Renaissance wants to know what you think and where you live - if you are creative.  They have asked New Economy Strategies LLC to conduct a survey to gauge obstacles to build a creative environment and Crain’s Detroit to survey the community to create a map of all the creative sector businesses in our Metro area.

For the Creative Business Climate survey (which they will email you the results of) click here.

For the asset map survey (which they won’t send you results of), you can read Mary Kramer’s intro to the survey, or jump to the survey.  If you even remotely suspect that you or someone you may work with can loosely be defined as creative - take this survey.  This survey is aimed at business, not individual, so fill it out for your company, even if you are a company of one!

There are few options (1) if you are in the music industry, and there may be others that are not completely represented.  Go ahead and pick the ‘other’ checkbox - don’t be intimidated to explain how you don’t fit into any of the pigeon holes!  What is most important is to stand up and be counted!

In case you haven’t gotten there yet and you are into the fashion and design scene in Detroit, the last few days of DFW are rapidly drawing to a close.

Go to the St. Regis Hotel, 3071 W. Grand Blvd. @ Woodward in Detroit (next to the Fisher Theater)

Starting at 7:30 Friday,

Camilo, Gretta Wallace, Jill Robertson, Samaher Mohammad - Zaynini Fashion Intl.

Starting at 7:30 Saturday,

La’Tosha Williams-Qahhaar - La’Monee’ Couture
Lasijas Miller - Nethade by Lasijas
Cynthia Lamaide - LaMaide Designs Inc.
Fotoula Lambros / Emily Thornhill - Femilia
Beulah Cooley - The “Beulah Cooley Collection”

More detail and tickets on the DFW site.

There is never a shortage of reasons to head for the ‘D’ on any given weekend, and this one is no exception!  With over 50 live performances, 6 stages, and way over a hundred individual artist booths, the Detroit Festival of the Arts will be a celebration of the creative!  In it’s 21st year, the Festival is located in the heart of the Wayne State area, and is easily reached from several major freeways.  If live music, tons of sand, and just about every type of live performance you can imagine sound like a good time, hit it!

Come to the DYC at 8am tomorrow to hear Smart Cities Radio host and CEO’s for Cities President Carol Coletta discussing what it takes to make a city successful and how Detroit measures up. Register here, get more info here, and get directions here. Joining Carol will be Detroit’s own Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future.