I went to the Riverside Arts Center to hear the presentation by Doyle Palma of HyettPalma of their study for downtown Ypsilanti. I took a bunch of notes, which I'll pretty much leave out of here because hopefully soon the actual report will be online.
I will say I'm filled with cautious but strong optimism. The presentation and the presenter seemed on the level — I'm normally very skeptical of things like this, so I dial up the BS detector's sensativity, but I didn't get much from this. With a limited history with the area I can't judge on much of the historical trends, but what was said made sense and seemed to fit in with what has been happening. I'm very much in love with Ypsilanti, I think it is an excellent community and there is an amazing amount of cool and interesting stuff going on here. I'll likely be moving soon to Ypsi proper, closer to downtown, probably in the Midtown neighborhood, and I'm really looking forward to it.