Huffington Post, December 1, 2011
""You try things and some work, some don't, you retreat back into your shell a little bit, and then you try again," he says. "I try to just listen to people, go to neighborhood meetings. Social permission goes a long way. You'll get smacked if you don't make friends, don't put in some time to get people's stories.""
The Independent, November 21, 2011
"His new venture, Loveland Technologies, is an experiment in using cyber-technology to tackle Detroit's huge housing and delinquent property problems... He recently launched an interactive web site mapping and profiling for potential buyers each of the roughly 13,000 houses in foreclosure that the city put up for sale in an eBay-style auction last month. Prices started at about $500."
Bridge, November 8, 2011
"It brings order to what used to be a phone book of confusing information, making it easily accessible to everyone — for free. It puts local residents on an even playing field with speculators so they can take charge of the problem properties in their neighborhood and turn them into assets."
Curbed, October 27, 2011
"Ever been at the Dollar Store and thought, what the hell, give me that WHOLE SHELF! Such is the mentality that might apply to this round of the Wayne County Tax Auction's High Roller List."
Detroit News, October 20, 2011
"That interactivity helped one city resident sidestep a potential auction disaster. A visitor to the site saw Michael Lee's metal finishing business on the auction list and posted a message about it."
Model D, October 18, 2011
"This is information everyone should have access to. If we try to charge people for it, we would just be repeating the same mistakes. That's not what we're about. There are people who are moving out of the city or missing out on opportunities because of the environmental conditions here."
Detroit Lives, September 27, 2011
"What’s really great is that what was, for a very long time, a very murky and unclear process (as of last year when I participated) is getting much more visible and easier to circumnavigate– thanks to the good work of Team LOVELAND."
Model D, September 13, 2011
"This year's tax foreclosure auction promises to be the biggest yet with a record number of properties and Wayne County extensively promoting it. Add in the convenience of it being online and participation could be record setting. Paffendorf and his two other co-founders at LOVELAND Technologies hope WhyDontWeOwnThis.com will enable locals to buy problem properties and turn them into assets, keeping them out of the hands of speculators and absentee landlords."
Curbed, September 13, 2011
"So thank goodness for LOVELAND Technologies and its founder Jerry Paffendorf who found this presentation of info wildly inadequate. "Someone needs to make this clear. Otherwise it's just a phone book.""
Metro Times Detroit, July 20, 2011
"Either one incredibly wealthy entity buys you or a whole bunch invest in the success of your project without the legal sense of ownership and controls. The latter option is all about spiritual equity. - Jerry Paffendorf"
Model D, July 19, 2011
"This new mapping system would create an individual profile for each apartment, allowing perspective tenants to find out the basic information about the unit and take a virtual tour of it. The system also would make it easier for tenants to communicate with management to solve problems and increase the quality of life."
mlive.com, May 18, 2011
"In addition to talks with IMDB, Proulx said he's had discussions with the folks at the Guinness Book of World Records, who tell him his film should set a new mark for the number of producers."
Tech Cocktail, April 28, 2011
The South End, April 21, 2011
"“We want to do some more planting, gardening and landscaping; make it so it’s a visitable park,” Paffendorf said. “We want to get into building it out so that it feels good to go over and hang out at.”"
mlive.com, February 17, 2011
"Detroit can be futuristic again, according to artist Jerry Paffendorf. Not simply by building a RoboCop statue, but by recreating itself in innovative ways."
next billion, February 10, 2011
"In Detroit, entrepreneurs rave that if you want to get something done, people will help you do it. Local business owners are often happy when another business opens on the same street-instead of taking away their business, it increases it by making their neighborhoods safer and nicer."
BoingBoing, December 20, 2010
Huffington Post, November 22, 2010
"The Inches are a powerful metaphor for units of measurement in a shrinking city. The project is a collaborative hybrid-reality experiment, with the idea being that the crisis faced by Detroit is so massive that an inch is a simple platform on which to build, the same way a seed can become a tree."
Detroit News, November 14, 2010
"At 5:07 p.m. Saturday, the Coys will publicly unveil their newest — and most ambitious — project, a large $13,000 neon sign mounted on the Roosevelt Hotel on 14th off Michigan Avenue in Corktown. Called "No Vacancy," it plays off the emptiness of the defunct hotel and features pigeons, which are often seen in their work to represent their ubiquity in urban settings."
BoingBoing, November 10, 2010
"The point of Loveland is to start somewhere, together, to connect with people, amplify the awesome and see where it goes. And so far, as the mayor of Loveland, I find the inchventure tremendous, for all its ostensible tiny-ness."
After 5 Detroit, November 4, 2010
"The first project that Loveland helped to fund was "Monumental Kitty". This was part of the Corktown Pedestrian Overpass Improvement Project connecting Corktown with downtown via a safe, lit and vibrant overpass."
Detroit Make it Here, November 3, 2010
"People involved in the type of social entrepreneur projects DeBruyn and Paffendorf are working on find plenty of opportunity to work together in the real world too. And the scene in Detroit is open, DeBruyn said. Anyone with an idea shouldn't be too timid to speak up or think only cool, hipsters are welcome."
Core77, November 2, 2010
"Another fantastic project from Detroit: Catie Newell's Salvaged Landscape takes wood reclamation one step further, transforming burnt lumber from an arsoned house into a new spatial volume and material landscape. Supported by Detroit nonprofit The Imagination Station..."
techno // marketer, November 1, 2010
"This way of thinking small can have a big impact. It's different, adds value to the community and to individuals and makes you sit back and think about the possibilities. Just think about micro funding a novel all the way up to a project to bring clean water to Africa."
The Lofts of Merchants Row, October 21, 2010
"Whether it amounts to a huge revival of investment real estate in Detroit or an interesting art project is a moot point. Our focus is on the Loveland Project as another step in showing the world the creative talents in Detroit and the ability of Detroiters to reinvent (dare we say, ‘cultivate’?) what’s around them."
mlive.com, October 20, 2010
"Boston-based filmmaker Erik Proulx is working to tell a story of rebirth and reinvestment in Detroit, and to complete the project he's asking individuals to fund the project. Frame-by-frame."
Xconomy, October 14, 2010
"“We started realizing that if we could get the real-life data, we could use the same social map system we have [for Plymouth and Hello World] and apply it to the whole city,” Paffendorf says. “You could mouse over every parcel and see who owns it; if it’s the city, if it’s private, if it’s vacant, if it’s for sale, then you could click on it and comment on it. Block by block, people in the city could have a conversation about the things they want to see.”"
The New York Times, August 4, 2010
"Work, though, is what this D.I.Y. city has not shied away from. In June a group including Mr. Paffendorf of Loveland spent $1,000 for two abandoned houses across from the vacant Michigan Central Station, a symbol of Detroit’s decline, and, along with the Packard plant, a must-stop on any hardscrabble tour. They renamed the buildings — shells filled with debris and a few squatters — Imagination Station and hope to transform them into an artists’ enclave and green space. There wasn’t much to see yet, but Mr. Paffendorf offered a tour. “Welcome home,” he said, pushing open the battered door, with a hole where the lock should be."
Metro Times Detroit, July 27, 2010
"The Imagination Station is exploding from the ashes of a firebombed flophouse standing — barely — in the shadow of Detroit's abandoned, antique train station. Painted colors splash from a second story window, and people congregate on the lawn to plan the future."
Detroit Moxie, July 16, 2010
"Detroit has real problems and in addition to all the necessary ground work it needs new online and mobile solutions for connecting and empowering people and communities, increasing transparency, fundraising, mapping, planning, globally showcasing the great local work of the less internet-savvy, making it fun to participate in reinvention, and so on down the line."
WDET Craig Fahle Show, July 14, 2010
PSFK, July 14, 2010
"We went through appropriate city channels to try and purchase a specific lot for that but have been temporarily held up by who-knows-what city decision-making process, so the physical land for Hello World has yet to fully manifest. But that’s OK! It’s all part of the inchventure, and we promise to secure the land that people inchvest in as soon as we can. "
Detroit Free Press, July 7, 2010
"Jerry Paffendorf, who spearheads a project to sell square-inch plots of land in the city, is building on the project's healthy Internet buzz to throw a bash Saturday at the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue and the adjacent Café D'Mongo's Speakeasy."
I Am Young Detroit, June 28, 2010
"Half of everyone’s inchvestment in season 2 will go to the seven projects, including the Motor City Blight Busters and The Pedestrian Overpass Improvement Project. “So our first one that we have…we’re raising 1500 dollars to help do a sculpture called monumental kitty, which is going to be on the overpass by old Tiger Stadium. We keep working on the system trying to come up with fun ways to get people participating in the city and bringing in the cool ideas and hopefully bringing in more money and engagement on top of the inches.”"
SF Beta, May 25, 2010
"At SF Beta last week, I had the chance to meet the folks behind Loveland, one of the coolest and most unique groups to ever pass through our doors — and that’s saying a lot."
ABC Radio Australia, March 24, 2010
"I would like to see Detroit get put back on the network. I find that idea very cool, and hopefully inspiring to other people, to think outside the box and begin a process of putting it back online, showing people things in the city. Inviting them to have an ownership stake in the city, however modest, still has a psychological impact."
Fast Company, March 7, 2010
"Then there's Loveland, Jerry Paffendorf's "wild social network of people, literally built out of the dirt." Paffendorf bought a vacant lot for $500 and sold it, an inch at a time for $1 per inch, to almost 600 "inchvestors" around the world. It's called Plymouth."
Boing Boing, March 5, 2010
"Today at Institute for the Future, Jerry Paffendorf is telling us about Loveland, his art/game/activism project to sell real land in Detroit, Michigan inch-by-inch, for $1/inch. "
NPR / All Things Considered, March 4, 2010
"Paffendorf says Detroit is a place of opportunity and creativity. He shares an optimism about the city and his project with Ricki Collins. She's 9 years old and lives next door to the empty lot Paffendorf bought. Hers is the only house left on the block. "I want people to remember this place. Remember it. And I want people to come over so we can get to know each other, learn new things about each other," Ricki says."
The Imagination Age, March 4, 2010
"I'm working hard to turn my inches into opportunities to connect people in Detroit with a larger community of innovators around the world, and I need your help, your ideas, your support and most of all, your imagination. Inches are tiny, but I hope you'll think big."
WDET, February 13, 2010
"No property taxes. In some ways I look at loveland as a BS buffer - I own the property in the catalog of the city, I pay the taxes and give the inchvestors a clean-burning ownership experience. They have a piece of the world that's theirs, they can visit... all the fun things about having land, without the minuses of having to mow your lawn."
Detroit Free Press, February 13, 2010
AP, February 13, 2010
Motherboard.tv, January 29, 2010
"One of the innovations here I think is that just as easily as you could buy a bag of virtual fertilizer at Farmville on Facebook, you could have an actual property, even if it is Loveland terms of ownership. That is a way you could make a whole bunch of ownership and redevelopment pretty seamless. We’ve got to find ways to make land ownership more simple, cheap, fun, and social. And then highly creative."
Detroit News, January 29, 2010
"I told him I plan to put a tomato plant on my square inch. The stem itself would take up about that much space, and if any adjoining landowners or passers-by want to help themselves to a tomato, that'd be fine with me."
Detroit News, January 12, 2010
Blog Talk Radio, January 6, 2010
"I'm always motivated to work on and open up new spaces, where there's not just one particular application, but with this model you can run a number of different activities through it. Just taking land and parceling it out in such a way, even land so small, inspires ideas in everything from games and reenactments to urban farming to murals to solar power..."
PSFK, December 31, 2009
"The metaphor of city as canvas works especially well for Detroit, a city seeking a new identity. This relatively ‘open’ landscape, coupled with inexpensive living and even cheaper real estate, make Detroit an ideal setting for these roots rebuilding efforts."
Plymouth
Hello World