Nina Creimer Almeida
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Mark Crain
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Dream of Detroit / NonUM
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 1 – 10am – 10:50am
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Nina Creimer Almeida, Mark Crain
Presenter: 120
Abstract
Dream of Detroit is an organization combining community development with community organizing to revitalize a neighborhood on the Westside of Detroit. The first half of this research project aims to create a list of realistic sustainable business concepts for Woodrow Wilson St., the main economic corridor in Dream of Detroit’s impact turf. We started by compiling a broad list of existing eco-friendly companies across the US, then narrowing that list to business types that do not already exist in the greater Detroit area. The remaining list consisted of promising business concepts that already exist in emerging cities like Denver, Portland, and Austin, and included insights on their model, their profitability, and their potential replicability or scalability. The second research initiative explored the viability of digital local currencies to create a capital injection in undervalued neighborhoods. A report was made that describes the history of local currencies in America and catalogs existing, active currencies. Beyond that, the report tackles how realistic it would be to implement a digital currency in Detroit itself by answering questions on how to distribute the coin, how to tackle inflation, how to remove the currency from circulation, how to incentivize business participation and more.
Engineering, Environmental Studies, Interdisciplinary, Public Health, Social Sciences
