Whole Foods in Detroit's Midtown

Whole Foods, a national chain of organic grocery stores, is soon to announce that it will open a store in the Midtown area of Detroit. It seems that Midtown is hip and trendy enough to warrant a store. This is a good thing.

Midtown Detroit is basically the area on Woodward Avenue between downtown Detroit and the New Center area, which is where the Fisher Building sit. Midtown contains the Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, the museum district and the main Detroit Library. It is a pleasant part of Detroit which will only be strengthened with the addition of Whole Foods.

Some residents are concerned, however. Though they welcome the idea of a major chain locating a store in Midtown, they do fear that the attention might attract other large stores and chase out the smaller, local businesses which have helped the area thrive. A large scale invasion of national chains might also hurt residents by ratcheting up property values, thus driving them out.

How do we respond to such fears? If you want a growing, stable community, then you have to grow, and that growth and stability is going to attract investors. To be sure, we don't want to belittle the issues which come with growth. But we are better off with growing pains than stagnation, or, worse, decay. Yes, some local businesses and residents may well be pained. But remember the old saw that no one misses whale oil salesmen. Things change, and so long as the change is for the better it needs community support.

Besides, the large chains are already in Midtown. There are Rite Aid and CVS drug stores, a Radio Shack, and a Starbucks; a Biggby's Coffee too, if that counts. These are just off the top of our heads this morning. A walk down Woodward would likely show us more. At this point, one more large company surely doesn't matter. We're beyond concerns about what growth will do. It's doing it.

Detroit's Midtown is a bright spot in the urban wasteland which covers so much of the city. It is better to celebrate that, than worry over things which have already happened. Welcome, Whole Foods.