East Lansing's application for a grant from Gov. Jennifer Granholm's Cool Cities initiative should be used to add unique flavor to the downtown area.

The city, along with more than 100 other cities, recently applied to receive $100,000 from the initiative in order to jump-start projects to revamp the city. The winning cities will be announced in June.

The ambition of the program is to attract a young professional crowd and discourage people from running off to cooler cities like San Francisco and New York.

East Lansing isn't completely lost. The city has got cool things like the Wharton Center, the East Lansing Film Festival, the Art Fair and the Folk Festival. We're special already, we just need to promote it more.

But that's still not good enough. From July 2000 to July 2002, about 33,000 people in the 25- to 34- year-old age group moved from Michigan to other states.

Should the city get the grant, the East Lansing Cool Cities Partnership will need to figure out what to use the money for.

Asking for money is a good thing. If East Lansing wins a grant, that's an even better thing. But the bottom line is keeping people in East Lansing; to do that, the money needs to give East Lansing a distinct feeling.

A top priority for the city should be making room for smaller businesses. Our downtown area should be speckled with stores that don't exist in other places.

Starbucks is fine, but it's nothing residents can't find anywhere else. There should be unique restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters and stores that make people feel at home.

Our city needs flavor to make residents feel like it's a special place where they are comfortable.

It would be great to walk into a restaurant or clothing store and know all about the owner. Instead, we have a Gap that's just like any other Gap across the country.

The city needs to put its thinking cap on and be a little original. If East Lansing residents don't feel invested in the community, then no amount of bars or restaurants is going to change that.