How many times have you gotten excited to buy something from a local business when the story behind the Detroit-made product was priceless? There is great energy bubbling around a robust and supportive ecosystem for small manufacturers and producers here in the city.
The Urban Manufacturing Alliance (UMA) launched an exchange here at TechTown in May, to support the city’s participation in a national study, the “State of Urban Manufacturing” (SUM). Along with Baltimore, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Portland, Detroit is a key city being researched to gain insight and to help inform the community about our very own assets in the industry.
But, let’s be clear – this is not about automotive manufacturing. This is all about supporting those businesses that make things like apparel, home goods, and accessories, creative merchandise that helps sustain and grow these small industries from design to product.
The UMA Launch, led by Detroit Creative Corridor Center (DC3), drew a variety of skilled talent, plus passionate people, and revealed many reasons why this matters for Detroit. The room was filled with excited, action-ready thought leaders who were clearly passionate about the SUM study.
SUM will help Detroit develop a framework to talk more broadly about small-scale manufacturing’s relevance to investors, policymakers and more, encouraging the growth of more companies like Detroit Fiber Works, Detroit Denim, Rebel Nell, Trish’s Garage, and Mutual Adoration.
The lively discussion at TechTown stressed how the new framework will help us develop educational careers paths to skills training and support job creation.
“This is all about supporting those businesses that make things like apparel, home goods, and accessories, creative merchandise that helps sustain and grow these small industries from design to product.”
As a seamstress in my spare time, I was excited to be in the room and part of such a valuable dialogue about all the possibilities that can result from making and selling our own goods. The vision for small-scale manufacturing can work and there is a demand in Detroit. SUM will give us the data needed to come up with strategies that make sense for workforce development through non-traditional jobs that involve using our hands to make things and build respectable careers, with living wages that support families. But we have to plan carefully.
TechTown and other partners invited to the launch, such as BUILD Institute, Detroit Economic Growth Corp., and PonyRide, have been asked to play roles in data collection. TechTown’s work with place-based entrepreneurs made sense for engagement in supporting the study. Much of the work implemented by place-based providers is directly related to access and opportunities in underserved Detroit neighborhoods. Economic development is the driver for revitalization in these areas, and this doesn’t happen in an equitable way without jobs.
What will come from the recent launch and ongoing data collection – what will we discover about ourselves and those we call “makers” – I am certain, will inform us all about the landscape for potential in Detroit. Getting DC3, UMA and the experts who were in the room together was a great start.
The next steps involve connecting known makers and teasing out the untapped makers and small manufacturers to recruit them into this effort. Their expertise and connections in the maker community, knowledge of manufacturing, policy, land use, workforce, business services, economic development, or investment will help guide UMA’s goals in Detroit.
We need their voices as we gather data, analyze recent shifts in urban manufacturing, better understand the relationship between entrepreneurship and traditional manufacturing enterprises, and identify or create programs and tools that encourage growth locally.
“I want the small designers and makers to have first right of refusal to the rebirth of manufacturing in Detroit before any big, deep-pocket corporations come in and take over the market.”
Ultimately, SUM is likely to glean some opportunities to inform policy and create a platform that validates why makers are critical to our local economy, and to compel action and strategies to build a robust ecosystem that supports supply and demand. I want the small designers and makers to have first right of refusal to the rebirth of manufacturing in Detroit before any big, deep-pocket corporations come in and take over the market.
At the end of the day, I hope we discover there are many opportunities to include youth in careers paths that include using our hands. I know firsthand the value of having taken a sewing class in high school, designing and creating apparel, and I come across many students who want to use their talents to become makers. But how and where do they learn? Based on the passion generated at the UMA launch, I am certain we will get to the right place by investing action, time and commitment.
Regina Ann Campbell is Managing Director of Place-based Entrepreneurship for TechTown Detroit.
To learn more about the Urban Manufacturing Alliance, visit https://www.urbanmfg.org/about/ or email: bfahoome@detroitc3.com
To learn more about Bank of America’s many programs and resources for small business owners visit: https://www.bankofamerica.com/smallbusiness/business-financing.go
Lead Photo by Michelle & Chris Gerard.
Regina Ann Campbell’s head shot was provided by Ms. Campbell and is reprinted with permission.
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