A LETTER FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE
MON · NOV 2 · 2026
It's election week, Detroit is planning 1,000 new homes on its vacant lots, and the Red Wings' captain just told the team he won't play here anymore.
AROUND
Mayor Sheffield unveiled Project 1,000 on Wednesday: 1,000 newly built homes on the city's roughly 120,000 vacant lots by 2031, about 250 a year. Detroit built 84 infill units in 2024 and 114 last year, and the plan loosens zoning guidelines and speeds up blight demolition to close the gap. The people cheering it want the zoning and the permits to move as fast as the press release.
The school district wants to bring libraries back to 89 schools that don't have them, with $8.7 million in one-time money plus about $5 million a year for staffing inside a $251 million spending plan. The board votes this month or next, and if it passes, libraries could partly reopen by fall 2027. The people in the thread called it the best use of tax dollars they'd seen in a while.
Dylan Larkin told the Red Wings through his agent Thursday that he won't play for the team again, and the Wings suspended their captain without pay the same day, which costs him about $41,237 for every day it goes on. He asked for a trade in the spring and lost the captaincy before training camp, and the reporting has Minnesota pushing hardest for him. The people tracking his forfeited salary to the penny went and built a website for it.
The Daly Drive-In in Livonia served its last Dalyburger Wednesday after 67 years. The owner is retiring, no buyer stepped up for the building, and talks to keep the sauce in local groceries fell through, so this was goodbye for good. The people were lined up out the door all week for a last one.
Highland Park residents picketed a GLWA board meeting Wednesday over a formula they say bills the city about $1.5 million a year too much in sewer fees, charging Highland Park for 2 percent of the region's sewer-overflow costs when its meters say it contributes a fifth of one percent. GLWA says a 1999 agreement settles it and nothing is owed, so now an arbitrator will.
The Brewers finished off the Rays Wednesday night for the first World Series title in franchise history, and Detroit's baseball internet spent the week asking whether that's the roadmap, since Milwaukee's front office grew out of the same draft-and-develop shop as Scott Harris's. Rookie Kevin McGonigle already won Baseball America's rookie of the year award, and the writers' version comes this month. The people are split between trust the plan and spend the money.
UP
The City Planning Commission has recommended rezoning part of Cadillac Heights from heavy to light industrial, which would stop the Moroun family's Kronos concrete plant from expanding in the neighborhood where residents have filed about 80 environmental complaints. The plant that's there can keep running, the family's attorney threatened a lawsuit, and Council takes it up at a public hearing November 19.
Detroit is getting two Coleman Young statues, one for the US Capitol where he'd replace the Lewis Cass statue and one planned for the east riverfront as part of the RenCen redevelopment. A model went on view at the Charles H. Wright Museum this month, the sculptor is the Detroiter Austen Brantley, and about $1.2 million of the $2 million Capitol budget is raised.
ON
MON 2 Monday is the last full day to return an absentee ballot, and clerks' offices are open for in-person absentee voting and registration. Michigan allows same-day registration with proof of residency right through Election Day.
TUE 3 Tuesday is Election Day. Polls are open 7 to 8, absentee ballots have to be in the clerk's hands by 8, and Detroit has 38 drop boxes. On the ballot: an open governor's race with Whitmer term-limited, the US Senate seat, and two statewide proposals, the every-16-years constitutional convention question and a ban on campaign contributions from DTE, Consumers and other big state contractors, and the city expects turnout to beat 2022's 34 percent.
WED 4 The Pistons host the Sixers Wednesday at 7 at Little Caesars Arena (click here for the schedule).
THU 5 The Red Wings host the Golden Knights Thursday at 7 at Little Caesars Arena (click here for the schedule).
SAT 7 Michigan State plays Michigan Saturday at the Big House with the Paul Bunyan Trophy on the line, kickoff to be announced.
SUN 8 The Lions are in Miami Sunday at 1 on FOX (click here for the schedule), and the Pistons host the Lakers that night at 6.
WENT ON
The last two times Election Day itself fell on November 2, Michigan elected a governor: James Blanchard in 1982, by under three points, and Rick Snyder in 2010, by 18. Whoever wins Tuesday joins a list that tends to run the state for a while.
See you Monday.
DETROIT.CO
Everything here links to where we found it: local reporting, city records and what neighbors are posting. Corrections welcome.