Alari K. Adams
In some ways it makes sense for entrepreneurs to move a business to a community before moving there themselves. Small businesses, especially service-based ones, are flexible and can move easily. Moving one’s life can be a bit more complicated.
That's turning out to not be the case with more and more young entrepreneurs in the greater downtown Detroit area. Alari K. Adams and her business,
ASquared Legal Group, are another example of it.
Adams is a Flint-area native, but she wasn't unfamiliar with Detroit. She went to law school at Wayne State University and has family that calls the Motor City home. Being a part of the rebirth of Detroit is something that slowly grew on her and she matured into her career as an attorney.
But she still launched her own law practice, ASquared Legal Group outside of the city limits. She started off five years ago in Birmingham and then moved to Bloomfield Hills. It wasn't until this year that she moved her practice to downtown Detroit.
Adams moved to downtown Detroit first and did the reverse commute to the suburbs for a few years. That was a couple of years ago when the city was in turmoil from the Great Recession and Kwame Kilpatrick's prolonged scandal. But like a lot of other young people, Adams could see through it.
"It was a sad time but by moving down here I could see people were still working on building businesses and getting they own stuff going," Adams says.
She enjoyed that sort of sustained forward momentum more and more while also becoming more involved with it. It turned out to be only a short time before she moved her entire life downtown.
"It just made more sense for me to live downtown," Adams says. "I know it would be the right community to get my career things on its way."
- Written by Jon Zemke