DeWitt — Can you feel it? The wind is different in small-town Michigan these days. Tamped down by new small-scale high rises, three-story apartment buildings with shops on the ground floor. The scent of fresh pour-over coffee hangs in the air. Wine bars, fine dining, bakeries, and dessert shops, all a quarter of a mile away from cow pastures.
Small-town Michigan is changing, as the hipster tastes of a decade ago filter out across the Midwest. Mostly for the better, though sometimes for the worse.
Millennial hipsters and property developers alike are often condemned for the nebulous sin of “gentrifying.” Detractors moan and groan. How dare they like nice apartments, good food, good coffee? How dare they enjoy the American consumer economy, the gigantic engine that powers the entire global GDP?
Did you thank a millennial today? Before them, small-town America was in dire straits. Thank them for single-handedly improving the quality of American coffee shops across the entire country, with their bourgeois taste and willingness to pay $7 for a latte. Many other millennial cultural contributions have faded by now—skinny jeans, folk revivalism, Instagram as something actually cool. But their taste for good food, good cocktails, and good coffee has had a tremendously positive impact across the country.
Small towns like DeWitt now boast not one, not two, but three very good local coffee shops. You can get a cappuccino there as good as anywhere else. Bakeries, dessert shops, specialty meat shops. Ice cream, brewpubs with great barbecue specials. “Casual fine-dining” restaurants with voluminous wine lists and smoked meatloaf on the menu (Bridge Street Social never misses). You can live in small-town Michigan and lack for nothing, even the finer things in life.
For many Michiganders, and even out-of-staters, it presents an idyllic situation. No longer is rural life completely isolated from culture. You can have your isolated farmhouse, your 20 acres, and still be 10 minutes away from trendy hair salons and cocktail bars. You can work remote, if you’re savvy, and pair Silicon Valley wages with small-town Michigan cost of living. Small local school districts offer more personal attention for students, and there’s plenty of time and space to homeschool instead, if that’s your thing.
Sure, many locals bemoan these changes. No one wants outsiders, or God forbid, tech bros and real estate agents, taking over their towns. No one wants their local culture, the fruit of generations, washed away in a sea of gray laminate floors and faceless chain restaurants. No one wants historic buildings demolished to make way for soulless apartment buildings.
This could all be a good thing, though, with a little steering and the right perspective. DeWitt is a great example of how to do it right. Most of these establishments are locally owned. You still need to drive south toward Lansing for big box stores and chain restaurants. The charming little downtown, the local diner, the party store, the acres and acres of farmland, they all still exist.
We can keep the good, bring in new things, and let go of the bad and mediocre. Keep the diner, but maybe the coffee gets a bit better, maybe some new specials land on the menu. That’s the vision of the future for small-town Michigan, one we need not fear.
One thing’s for certain though, and this is where I start to agree with the anti-gentrification crowd. When you start seeing these little high-rises pop up, you know your rent is going up. This new building right in downtown DeWitt boasts rents averaging $2,000 a month. Cheap compared to the coastal cities, but exorbitant for small-town Michigan.
Faux-luxury apartments are comfortable, sure, but they aren’t the answer here. Neither are the half-a-million-dollar cookie-cutter new build houses popping up, with fake brick facades and long snout garages jutting into their lengthy driveways. Financial derivatives made of cardboard, with 7% mortgages. Perfect for waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.
Barndominiums may be somewhat bland architecturally, but they present a novel alternative. Efficient, cheap to build, pragmatic. That’s the way to build in these areas. You can enjoy the fruits of budding consumer tastes without driving everyone’s rent through the roof. Keep the new housing simple, efficient, and affordable, and it will pay dividends over time.
People live in these places, after all, and we want them to continue to. We want small-town Michigan to grow, not shrink. For these to be towns where people raise their families, while they enjoy good food and fancy espresso drinks.
Get involved, build new things, and you might find a bright future blooming at your doorstep, one where change is welcome and not feared.
Bobby Mars is art director of Michigan Enjoyer. Follow him on X @bobby_on_mars.
