Movement In New York Urges People To Move To Detroit; Brooklyn Bridge Tagged With The Message

By Christy Strawser
DETROIT (CBS Detroit) Once it has a hashtag it's official, so it's safe to say the Move to Detroit campaign, a theme spreading through Twitter and Instagram and proclaimed on New York City billboards, is for real.

The famed Brooklyn Bridge even sports the message.

Spreading the word in New York City is Philip Kafka, owner of billboard company Prince Media Co., which uses its vertical real estate to brand Detroit as a coveted destination to hordes of big city dwellers.

Kafka, 28, created and bankrolls the billboards himself, saying he fell in love with Detroit on a visit three-and-a-half years ago, and wants everyone to understand the opportunities for entrepreneurs and the creative class.

"I make a living in New York right now, so I have to live in New York," he said, adding that as soon as he makes a living in Detroit -- something he's working on -- he'll become a Detroiter.

Why Detroit? The urban grittiness, the history, the context of hard-working men and women in a real community they built themselves over generations is what appeals.

And there are the opportunities, something he says no longer exists in New York City, where the divide between rich and poor is growing more disparate.

Kafka, an artist, started his company five years ago with one billboard on Prince Street. As he's expanded, he's stayed focused on creating youthful, memorable messages and images in areas populated mostly by Gen Y.

Studying maps and demographic reports, a trend emerged. "I noticed how young people kept moving ... It always comes back to money and price, they're (living) in small and smaller spaces."

He added: "I rent 500 square feet of a wall and that's how I make a living. I stated looking at cities that have intrinsic value ... People who've lived a perfect life aren't that interesting, scars are interesting. Detroit's that kind of city."

Kafka visited Detroit once and fell in love, returning multiple times to stay in different neighborhoods through airbnb rentals. He bought his first Detroit building two years ago, in Corktown, and partnered with chef Brad Greenhill and Courtney Henriette to re-imagine it as eatery Katoi in May.

That has changed up his Detroit billboard messaging a bit.

He noted the "now hiring" message is more an ad for Detroit at large than a literal urge for New Yorkers to work at his restaurant. It's a reminder there are opportunities here, jobs and housing, and room to grow.

Is it working? "It's hard to say," Kafka said. "I don't know if one ad is convincing. When you see somebody attractive at a bar, you don't want to marry them, but you're intrigued.

"It's a frontier and it has a ton of intrinsic value. I just want people to start thinking about Detroit."

It is spurring developers and investors to call and ask for advice about where they should spend their money in Detroit. Kafka's message to them is to only consider Detroit if they can spend time, as well as cash.

"(My building) had no roof and it had three walls, but I knew it could be a jewel box," Kafka said. "I've invested a lot more than I paid for the building into the building. If I was just investing, I would have given up by now. The numbers are relevant, but they're irrelevant because, they're really, it's academic right now. I haven't made any money there. But I feel alive in Detroit because I'm able to do creative things."

Billboard owners in New York don't become restaurant owners, he said. Artists don't become developers. But they can in Detroit, where opportunities are wide open.

"You get into the system (in New York), you have to stay there, the cost of living is too high to take risks, so that's why I came to Detroit. It's Detroit and not Minneapolis because Detroit has intrinsic value. You actually feel things there, it's not just a fabricated 21st Century city created by developers."

In a nutshell, he tells wannabe Detroiters this: "Here, you have to think in inches, in Detroit, you can think in miles."

By the numbers, Manhattan's median annual household income is $66,739; Detroit's is $26,000. Housing costs are $627 per square foot on average in New York City and $15 in Detroit.

Shinola launched its "made in Detroit" products in a series of glossily expensive ads in the New York Times Magazine. Former President Bill Clinton, who maintains an office in Brooklyn, now sports a Shinola on his wrist.

Apparently, on some fronts the message has works.
"Can't say I haven't thought about it," this New Yorker writes alongside the image, hashtagging it 'New Frontier.'

"Detroit has qualities that New York will never have again," Kafka said.