Voices include Rochelle Riley, Thomas Sugrue, Dan Calabrese, Elmore’s son and local bloggers.

"I just paid $4.50 for a cup of coffee. I feel so a part of the New Detroit."
-- Danny Fenster, in Faceboook post today from Great Lakes Coffee on Woodward

“I’ve done what I can do. . . . I’m not going to be carried out feet first.”
-- Rep. John Dingell, announcing retirement at 87

“[Dingell is] joining the likes of Alec Baldwin and Shia LaBeouf, both of whom have announced their departure from the limelight in recent days. I suspect that the three men did not coordinate their announcements, but you never know.”
-- Mark Maynard, Ypsilanti blogger

”As police chief, if he didn’t have his life threatened, I would be worried. He has to be the most cowardly and paranoid police chief we’ve ever had.”
-- David Stephen of Detroit, in Facebook comment on James Craig

“I have never heard of anyone testing out the safety of a gun by pointing at their head and pulling the trigger.”
--Michael McCabe, Oakland County undersheriff, commenting on death in Oakland Press

“It was hard not to believe change is coming. A choir could have been singing behind him.”
-- Rochelle Riley, Freep columnist, on Mike Duggan’s State of the City speech

“Driving down Schaefer towards 8 Mile in Detroit should not make me feel like I’m going to wreck my car.”
-- Neigha Johnson, blogging on potholes at Metro Times

"“When you combine the snow and the cold, there’s nobody alive that has experienced a winter worse" locally.
-- Rich Pollman, National Weather Service in White Lake Township, quoted Saturday by Freep

“If you’re writing crime fiction, Detroit is the promised land.”
-- Peter Leonard, Birmingham novelist, in Detroit News

“A lot of the plans to transform and revitalize Detroit are targeting a relatively small subset . . . that is, people with means, hipsters, creative types, professionals.”
-- Thomas Sugrue, author and sociologist, in Free Press interview

“Detroit is now a place where risk-oblivious millennials can get things done.”
-- Andreas Duany, in article excerpted at model D

“The UAW is the worst thing that ever happened to the domestic auto industry.”
-- Dan Calabrese, Detroit News blogger