Comments
Culinary Testing Grounds
By: Laura Chittenden (Laura Chittenden) on July 18th, 2012 at 3:41 pm When I was young, I thought of our city as being like any other city. Now I realize it has several meager reputations.
As a food reporter, I have been hearing that we are known as the just-right-sized city for any food vendor to test the waters of potential markets. It's exciting to see all these new food vendors (restaurants, food trucks, etc) offering new and unique types of cuisines.
Second, I heard people say we are the city with a church on every street corner. When I Iook around, it's quite true. I've also heard from volunteering at local charities that Grand Rapids is the best place for a homeless person since I've heard someone can get food every day of the week.
Finally, there was a film streak for a while, especially with the Grand Rapids LipDub video. I recently typed "video production" into Google and that video made the third result! I think that is impressive for a general query.
Onward and upward.
By: Calvin Webb (CW) on July 13th, 2012 at 12:25 pm During the 14 years I've lived in Grand Rapids, our city has changed dramatically. In my opinion, the majority of these developments have been instrumental in shaping where we live today. Recent accolades through popular national media have no doubt called peoples' attention to our great corner of the world, but I believe there's much work still to be done. Thankfully, it appears those making decisions also agree. They, too, seem to understand there's danger in becoming too comfortable with ourselves.
Personally, I'm most excited about the continued advancements in public transit, the arts (collectively), and even more farm-to-table dining options.
They're still catching up.
By: Holly Bechiri (Holly) on July 11th, 2012 at 4:15 pm I do think that so much has changed in G.R. in the past 5-15 years that those outside may not be aware of how enriching, vibrant and diverse it is becoming. We're getting close to awesome but from what I understand, there's still a general view of Grand Rapids as a conservative "wannabe big city" kind of place... perhaps the surrounding areas are more mainstream/conservative/homogenous. but the city itself seems pretty progressive to me. my husband, who grew up in northern africa and lived in europe and traveled quite a bit-he wasn't sure about g.r. when he first moved here-but now he says it's one of his favorite cities he's ever been to, and is glad to call it home. so that's a pretty strong endorsement!
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