There’s a lot going on in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. But what’s actually happening on the ground? The seven minute video above takes a little bit of a look under the hood.
“Where” is the beginnings of a new video series produced by Zach Lewis.
“I am originally from Philly and a lot of people I talk to from home, and out of state, have this idea that Detroit is constantly dangerous, or that it’s an undesirable place to live,” said Lewis to Daily Detroit. “I wanted to create a video that locals would appreciate, and also give people outside city boundaries a better idea of the city.”
One of the more interesting statistics is according to Chad Rochkind from Human Scale Studio in the video.
“There’s a perception in Detroit that Corktown is kind of the equivalent of Williamsburg (in Brooklyn) or The Mission (in San Francisco) and it’s not quite that,” said Rochkind. “We are the neighborhood with the least amount of residential turnover of any neighborhood. So this question around economic development and leading to displacement, that is not happening in Corktown in the way that we’ve seen in other neighborhoods.”
It’d be interesting to get ahold of the actual data on that and compare neighborhood by neighborhood, for sure.
The demand dynamic has changed for the area in just a year.
“All the vacant buildings that have been in Corktown since the recession of course (and maybe even before that) are totally occupied now,” said Ron Cooley of O’Connor Real Estate Development. “You could probably fill 200 rental properties or homes to purchase if they were available right now.”
Lewis says that he is looking to do more videos that involve storytelling and real estate. You can find more of his work as it comes out here.
