So what’s it like to live in Detroit?  Yes, I’m talking about Detroit, Detroit.  Not metropolitan Detroit, or the Detroit that’s commonly mistaken for Royal Oak, Ferndale, or West Bloomfield.  I’m talking about Downtown Detroit.

I know, everyone has his or her perceptions.  And I also know that many people are trying to change those perceptions.

You have Quicken Loans, telling the story of opportunity in Detroit.

You have Detroit Venture Partners telling the story of Detroit 2.0.

You have the government telling the story of Detroit as a place “where centuries of entrepreneurial DNA, 11 acres of unspoiled wilderness, and the world’s longest freshwater coastline, give us plenty of room to grow.”

But what’s it really like?  That’s the questions everyone always asks me about living down here.

Is it scary?

Is it safe?

Is it fun?

Here’s the simple truth – I didn’t move here after graduation for the “bright lights, big city, all looking pretty” as Alicia Keys would put it.  I didn’t move here for the glamour.  For the prestige, or for the number of big businesses in the area.

I moved here to help build these things.

Detroit is a city filled with risk takers, entrepreneurs, the tough skinned.  By definition, if you decide to move to Detroit, you must be all these things.

No where else in the world can you be part of building a business scene, re-invigorating a social scene, and influencing the political scene as much as you can in Detroit.

The past of Detroit is written in stone.  The future is not.

Right now, previous generations are taking the lead.  Our parent’s generation is making strategic investments.  They are investing in the next generation.  They are investing in us. And, we can either sit back and see how this plays out.  Or, we can step up and realize this is a rare occurrence in history where business minds, policy minds, philanthropic minds, and community minds are all coming together to solve a problem.  And the answer is us.

So that’s what it’s like to live downtown.  You wake up everyday knowing you are a solution  – albeit a small one – to some of the world’s most pressing problems.  Poverty, race, nationality, gender, sustainability – the future of the world is being created here. Yes, it will take time but nothing worthwhile is ever easy.