Urban Innovation Exchange (UIXDET) convened in Detroit last month, and people from cities around the country traded ideas for community transformation, telling localized and personalized stories of success and failure, hard work and creativity.

Each morning for three days, chairs filled with bodies, rooms became incubators for ideas, and inspiration flowed. In truth, it overflowed beyond the walls of venues and into the streets of Detroit, with up-close site visits and the overlapping Detroit Design Festival and DLECTRICITY events.

We rounded up 13 ideas from UIXDET that are working around the country. Could they work here? Why not?

Day 1 - Art of Place

Idea: Use the city as a gallery
Joan Vorderbruggen of Minneapolis talked about Artists in Storefronts and Made Here, which have turned parts of a South Minneapolis neighborhood into "an urban art gallery." Her group decorated a pedestrian bridge, led walking tours every Saturday, and turned the community into a "party zone" by making it visually exciting. Artists in Storefronts has featured 120 local artists and hosted 40 live performances since 2012, and Made Here was recently awarded a $48,000 grant by the McKnight Foundation. "All of that money will go to artists," she said.
Joan Vorderbruggen
Also in the public art sphere, attendees learned about The Alley Project (TAP) Gallery from founder Erik Howard. Howard calls TAP a "sustainable cultural community project and walking gallery that helps transform neighborhood through art and engagement." In other words, it's a gallery and studio converted from a garage and a community space.  Howard said TAP has grown "one garage at a time" and that neighborhood youth in southwest Detroit use the garages for expression through art, "becoming producers instead of consumers of media."

Idea: Use places to bring people together
Sara Blumenstein presented about the Garfield Night Market in Pittsburgh, an effort to activate a struggling neighborhood with a monthly night of food and fun for the entire family. CityLAB, the group behind the project doesn't just manage the market; it conducts its own census with tracking tools that measure development trends in the neighborhood. Blumenstein, who worked with CityLAB to launch the night market, also helped with CityLAB's Tiny Houses project, an attempt to fill in vacant lots in the Garfield community with affordable housing.

In Cleveland, activists like David Jurca are building Pop Up City, a series of projects designed to reinvent cities through "temporary interventions." One of the best ideas was how to take advantage of wintry weather conditions by creating "coldscapes" to encourage residents of northern cities to spend time outside even in winter. A "snowball pavilion" provides shade and breeze in summer, and in winter, provides shelter from the wind as it transforms into an "igloo." In a separate presentation, Greg Peckham of Cleveland's LAND Studio talked about connecting multiple neighborhoods - including the Detroit Shoreway community - with greenways, bike transit advocacy and public art.
Sara Blumenstein
Idea: Advertise your assets
More innovative work coming from Ohio was presented by Megan Deal of Cincinnati, who talked about CoSign, a project that uses the city's commercial visual heritage (the American Sign Museum is in Cincinnati) to increase neighborhood vibrancy via creative signage. After a successful pilot in 2012, the Sign Museum extended the project to new neighborhoods in 2013 and 2014.

Idea: Keep it inclusive
Finally, Ryan Myers-Johnson of Sidewalk Festival for the Arts discussed her goal to bring the arts to Detroit neighborhoods, breaking up what she sees as the "exclusivity of the performance art scene." Amy Kaherl of Detroit SOUP explained her organization's efforts to deliver micro-grants for creative projects in neighborhoods across the city. And Sebastian Jackson of Detroit's Social Club Grooming Company, which cuts hair and composts the clippings  to plant trees (seriously), shared how his salon tries to create racial equity through hair cutting and conversational storytelling. Attendees also heard from Hunter Franks, League of Creative Interventionists in San Francisco; and Eve Picker, CityLab Pittsburgh & smallchange.com - a real estate crowdfunding platform that uses small ideas to big advantage.
The 'Art of Place' panel
After the presentations, a group visited the up-and-coming Hamtramck and Banglatown neighborhoods, where projects like Power House, Play House, Write-A-House and Popps Packing are helping change community life through social art and design.
The Hinterlands' Play House
Day 2 - The Future of Food 
Day two began with a welcoming wake-up call -- "We are coming out of a 50-year coma" when it comes to what we eat -- by Detroit Eastern Market Corporation's president Dan Carmody.

Idea: Reuse and re-build, don't re-invent
Kim Bartmann of Tiny Diner in Minneapolis talked about how the restaurant and farm is a "small place with big ideas," that works on "rebuilding old, not having to invent new" and partners with a permaculture group in the city.    
Kim Bartman
Idea: Farm the city -- indoors and out
Anthony Hatinger of CDC Farm & Fishery in Detroit explained how the group acquired a former liquor store on Detroit's near west side and converted it into an aquaponics farm for raising tilapia. Nutrients from the water used in the tanks is then transferred to a garden, where various greens are grown. "We produce food, jobs, and hope," Hatinger said.
Anthony Hatinger
Idea: Keep it fresh, always
There's a restaurant that never serves the same thing twice. It's revolver, located in Hamtramck, Mich. Peter Dalinowsky shared how rotating chefs each weekend turns his restaurant--located in a diverse community with ethnic Bangladeshi, Yemeni and Polish communities--into a gastronomical adventure.

"We are not a pop up," he said, "We are a permanent space. We run the front and the chefs run the back. There is no hierarchy and respect extends to everyone."

Idea: Do the things that don't cost money, like building relationships
Devita Davison talked about two projects, FoodLab Detroit, which helps food entrepreneurs get started, and Detroit Kitchen Connect. which matches food entrepreneurs with commercial kitchens. "We are turning church kitchens into incubators," Davison said. 
Devita Davison
The Detroit Food Academy helps Detroit high school students develop into leadership roles as social entrepreneurs. Bobby Fry, from Pittsburgh's Food Revolution Cooking Club, said it is important to "use local things, empower people, make beautiful food, engage the community, keep them excited." Fry also advised food people to "build relationships and pay attention to things that don't cost money."
Brittany Sanders
Finally, Sara Blumenstein of the Pittsburgh Canning Exchange talked about canning swaps and parties that build community. "Nothing makes me happier than seeing a hipster and a grandmother sharing recipes," she said.

Day 3 - The Maker Movement
The final day of the UIX forums was held at Passenger, the newish live/work space for resident artists in rapidly redeveloping Capitol Park.

Idea: There's no such thing as a skills gap, but there is a values gap
Jen Guarino of Detroit's Shinola, which produces American-made watches, bicycles, and more, and the Makers Coalition of Minneapolis, which trains people to work in industrial sewing, addressed the so-called skills gap in American manufacturing. There isn't one, she said, but there is a "values gap....Now is the time for a wake-up call in manufacturing: we have to look at skilled labor as an asset, not as a cost. Let's be passionate about what we do. Let's be passionate about the people who do what we do."
Jen Guarino
Idea: Build spaces where kids can tinker
Jeff Sturges of Detroit's Mt. Elliott Makerspace said that his goal is to "expose people to as many things as possible at an early age." As a kid, he said, "I had spaces to tinker and blow things up." Sturges said the areas of concentration for the makerspace are about fundamentals: communication, wearables, food and wellness.

Idea: Embrace the skills of locals
Matt Anthony of Cincinnati's First Batch and Cincinnati Made talked about creating an accelerator for small batch manufacturing, facilitating connections, encouraging idea development, showing that impact can be made with innovative products.

Sara Aldridge and JeanMarie Morrish of Our/Detroit, a vodka distillery in southwest Detroit, said their business is women-owned and operated, uses ingredients sourced within five miles of their location and "has great local partners."
Sara Aldridge
Idea: Don't get sold a brand, build your own

Clement Brown Jr., of the FAME SHOP on Detroit's west side, told a moving story of a boy whose grandparents bought him an outfit, including a $200 pair of gym shoes, only to be be robbed, shot and killed over the items. Brown, who said he grew up in an abusive home, began to make T-shirts when he was a teenager to "separate himself from what was going on out on the street." He said his goal was to "help kids appreciate their own personal brand, not commercial brands."
Clement "Fame" Brown, Jr.
Idea: Chaos isn't a pit, chaos is a ladder
The morning's last speaker was John Fetterman, mayor of Braddock, a small town outside of Pittsburgh. Fetterman, who has appeared in national media stories about the fall and rise of Braddock, introduced himself bluntly by saying: "My town was more fucked up than yours ever was." He described a city, once known for its steel works, that had lost 90 percent of its population over a 50 year period. Fetterman spoke with passion, color and humor, even paraphrasing dialogue from HBO's 'Game of Thrones' ("Chaos isn't a pit, chaos is a ladder").

He turned serious when he said Braddock had gone five years without a homicide until late this summer ("Safety is the number one issue for cities," he said) and said the city has set up a free store to address basic needs of its residents.
John Fetterman
After a panel discussion moderated by Issue Media Group's director of content Amy Elliott Bragg, the group left by bus to see co-working and maker spaces at Ponyride.

Some people came back to Passenger to hear Knight Foundation president Alberto Ibargüen and vice president for community and national initiatives Carol Coletta in conversation about what cities need to do to accelerate talent. There was a Creative Exchange happy hour right after, and design festival crawls and Dlectricity installations to attend even later.

The day and night would have to come to an end, though it's likely there were many who did not want it to. It was a special day, and the finish of a most special week, in Detroit.

Looking for more inspiration from urban innovators whose small-scale projects are having big impacts on cities? Visit Urban Innovation Exchange. (Don't forget to like UIX on Facebook and follow it on Twitter, too!)

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Walter Wasacz is former managing editor for Model D, Elevation DC's sister publication in Detroit.

All photos by Doug Coombe.