Few will argue that New York City is driving out artists and creative types with higher costs and exponential population growth. People who wish to spend more time creating and less time worrying about the rent are looking for better opportunities for living - with lower rents, cheaper eats, and more space.

Susan Saulny’s NY Time’s article, “With Detroit in Downturn, Entrepreneurs Look Up” highlights some pretty great small businesses that are picking up in the Detroit Area. Perhaps Detroiters are tired of being viewed as simply the worst-hit city in America. They are instead turning low rents into opportunity. Find creperies, low-cost cinemas and stylist shops with attitude. Torya Blanchard pays a mere $1,600 a month to rent space for her creperie, which, positioned closely to Detroit Institute of the Arts, should eventually gain flipping success.

See kids, the recession can’t be all bad. When everything you’re accustomed to diminishes, there grows  plenty of opportunites for some bright imagination.

For great photos and the article that goes with it - head to the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/us/10startup.html?hp

Goldman Sachs - which owns Burger King - used part of their bailot money to pay their employees some of the highest bonuses in the industry. If they’d shared their bailot money with their Burger King workers they could have given every employee in America an extra $18,000.

This is kind of old news by now. But Goldman Sachs has actually screwed over many, many people in all sorts of companies and Brave New Films wanted people to have their say. They had a video competition asking people how they would SACK it to the people at Goldman Sachs (ehh..heehhh…).

Carolyn Bear’s husband was one of the people screwed over by Henry Kravis at Goldman. After working for 30 years, he lost his pension and all. Carolyn had a great idea for how to get a little of her pride back - rather creative, too:

Brave New Films, which made this documentary, sits at www.warongreed.org - a truly awesome website sent to me by my very aware friend, Jessica.

I just read a New York Times Article detailing the falling rents in New York City. According to the February Manhattan Rental Market Report (I betcha didn’t know there was one of those), rents are declining across Manhattan. The biggest drop is in studio apartments in doorman buildings which are listing at 8% below last year’s price.

I’m thinking this is great news until a hand comes out of nowhere, smacks me on the cheek and demands, “When will you ever be able to afford a studio apartment in a doorman building in Manhattan? You think you LIVE in Gossip Girl? You think you can find Carrie’s $700 rent stabilized one-bedroom brownstone apartment in REAL LIFE? What up, WAITRESS?!”

Anyhoo-

They list several good news stories, including Erika and Clark.They’re a couple who’d been somehow sharing an $1800 studio in the East Village on Avenue B…. [Read more →]

This week didn’t have much, (unless you count really serious things like a warrant being issued for Sudan’s Bashir) so I don’t think it deserves a top five, instead here are some bullet points in no particular order.

•    AIG lost more money
•    Chris Brown and Rihanna got back together, maybe, and maybe got married. I’m only mentioning this because according to The Week, it is the top story next to Obama and the stimulus.
•    Michael Jackson announced his return: 10 concerts in London, fans went crazy – forgot that it’s probably cause he is broke.
•    Watchmen came out and a lot of people saw it; Jonas Brothers movie slipped from No. 2 to No. 9
•    We didn’t get hit by an asteroid.

Here’s one good thing about the mortgage crisis - we all had to admit we know nothing about finance. Here’s one bad thing about the mortgage crisis - it freakin’ sucks.

More on NPR’s radio show- [Read more →]

As we all know, the economy is in a downward spiral: there might be even less of a reason to live in Detroit if the government doesn’t bailout the car companies, people might have to leave New York if the MTA raises the price to $3 a ride, and so on and so forth.

Well, the good and frugal folks of Queensland, Australia have a solution! They are throwing a party, and not just any kind of a party - a NUDE “Anything Goes” party, from now until March 2009. This is a party that you do not have to shop for! However, you may need to invest in a gym membership.

The party will turn the White Cockatoo Resort into a risque palace in March 2009.

Tough economic times call for some creative measures!

I was reading my favorite hometown newspaper South Coast Today (Massachusetts!) and saw a story about the Starbucks in our lovely, little Dartmouth mall CLOSING down!

Starbucks, closing? Say what?

I have to say, when Starbucks first appeared in town, everyone ho-humphed - “How Yuppy! How Crazy!…we’re a Dunkin’ Dougnuts town through and through.” And of course, I often have a crunchy attitude towards Starbucks - too “chainy”, too capitalist, too “take over the world”. I generally seek out the independant cafe’s. I even found one “Paradise Cafe” on 8th Ave and 15th street in Manhattan which proudly boasts - “We sell - small, mediums and larges…if you use Starbucks terminology, we’ll charge you Starbucks prices.”

But in fact, according to Brian Boyd, Starbucks is closing 600 stores nationwide. That’s 600 stores full of part-time workers in need of extra cash and basic insurance and 600 stores full of over-zealous teenagers in need of some lessons in espresso-making and responsibility.

Just think of the effect on the khaki-pants industry!?

Seriously, I like those iced-coffees. I love those little golden-puffy madeleine cookes they place ominously by the register. I love that pound cake made solely with butter, sugar and flour. And they often used fair-trade coffee and lanced new albums from old musicians back into the milieu.

I hear that in addition to closing stores, Starbucks will be rethinking its image - shorter machines so the customers can see the workers, less choices for less stress at the cashier, and comfier chairs. Perhaps Starbucks is just one more story of a good idea gone too far into consumerism.

Starbucks closing - good news? I dunno?!