Motor City Blight Busters, a Detroit-based non-profit around for over 20 years, opened a community coffee house on the northwest side of the city last February. Proprietor Alicia Marion said that she approached the organization about a decade ago with the suggestion to turn an empty storefront near the Redford Theatre into a coffee shop.

“No matter where I went, whether it was locally, Royal Oak or Ferndale or New York or New Orleans and New Jersey, there’s always a neighborhood diner or coffee shop,” Marion said. “I wanted to bring that back here to Lasher and Grand River.”

Folklore has always played a role in the historical narrative of major cities, and Detroit is no exception. Here, residents who put stake in superstition believe in an evil spirit none as the Nain Rouge, or “the red dwarf of Detroit.” 

When is a corporation not a corporation? When it’s an art concept that uses slick advertizing style pieces to spotlight Detroit’s vacant buildings. The Hygienic Dress League started in 2006 in Honolulu when Steve Coy and his wife, Dorota, created a gallery show under the same name.

The idea of “Hostel Detroit” started about a year back when Emily Doerr — a resident in the city’s Corktown neighborhood — says the interest in hosting a “couch surfer” grew to the point where she was considering putting up bunk beds in her condo to welcome even more out-of-towners. 

Sheila Crutchfield hadn’t been feeling well in late 2010. So on a winter Sunday the Detroit native went on-line and looked for a local free health clinic to attend. She found one and headed in for a check-up. 

“They told me about my cholesterol and they took a history of me and now, I’m going to go see the doctor,” she said.

But it was more than just a routine check-up, Crutchfield didn’t know, but she was taking part in a first time event for both the Muslim and Jewish communities in Detroit’s metropolitan area.

In Detroit, Mich., a local problem is gaining city-wide attention thanks to the help of some creative reporting and social networking tools. In the city's southwestern neighborhood, known as "Mexicantown," large tractor-trailer trucks take shortcuts down residential blocks, causing property damage and possibly health concerns.