How Cheese Can Help Save Detroit

The other night I watched that new police drama Detroit 1-8-7 about homicide cops in Detroit. Throughout the episode (which, I should mention, I liked) there was a running theme about solving the problems of Detroit, namely that there’s no good single way to do it. People can’t fix the city’s problems just by growing intercity gardens, helping police officers cut down on crime, or by testifying against convicted criminals alone. All these things have to be done if the city has any hope of thriving again. It’s a good argument and one I was thinking about when I read this Chicagoist post highlighting Zingerman’s Detroit St. Brick goat cheese.

Obviously the majority of Detroit’s problems can’t be solved by selling goat cheese but I think it can do more than a little good for the city. One of Detroit’s problems is that it doesn’t have a reputation as being an attractive place to go. It’s not considered one of the top places to enjoy fine art or music or food. This is a sad reality because the city has plenty of high culture, just not culture that everyone else knows about. That’s where something like Detroit St. Brick comes in. Zingerman’s, on the other hand, is very famous, so by association, Detroit St. Brick will become known to a broad audience who will start to think of Detroit as a place to get good cheese (it’s in the name after all). Sure this is just a small drop in the bucket but it’s something and these days Detroit needs (and deserves) all the help it can get.

(Image by stevendepolo used under a Creative Commons license.)