We're All Detroit, MI Now
A while back, I wrote a post called We’re all Flint, MI now. Mitch Albom just wrote a story that might as well be called We’re all Detroit, MI now (h/t Leen and dakine). He called it "The Courage of Detroit." It’s long–so to induce you to read it, I’m going to give you an almost-spoiler.
Because we may be a few steps behind the rest of the country, but we’re a few steps ahead of it too. And what’s happening to us may happen to you.
Do you think if your main industry sails away to foreign countries, if the tax base of your city dries up, you won’t have crumbling houses and men sleeping on church floors too? Do you think if we become a country that makes nothing, that builds nothing, that only services and outsources, that we will hold our place on the economic totem pole? Detroit may be suffering the worst from this semi-Depression, but we sure didn’t invent it. And we can’t stop it from spreading. We can only do what we do. Survive.
And yet we’re better at that than most places.
(Photo by LHOON)
Seriously. Read the whole article.
I did, when you brought up the first time. It’s first class writing. SI’s known for that – for a time, writing for it & the New Yorker was interchangeable for some top sports writers, like HH Wind on golf mostly, & Plimpton on mostly [on the other hand, they did publish a couple of my own things, so…]
While reading it, I kept thinking back on Plimpton’s stint as a Lion, & the specter of the -then missing Karras, ‘cuz he & Hornung had been ‘caught’ gambling. I always suspected Karras was ballast to protect Golden Boy’s image while upholding the league’s own. Lions fans should never forget they had Twinkletoes on their line: only player ever to figure out how to take Big Daddy Lipscomb out of action.
Great article bmaz & EW — thanks for the link.
On a related note about the demise of the manufacturing sector, the hubby told me last night that an old part of the steel mill down the hill from his Grandmother’s house in WV is being torn down and shipped to China as scrap to be used in making more steel. I hope someday someone can explain to me how it could possibly be more cost effective to tear down an old mill, ship it halfway across the planet, have it remade into new steel, and ship it back, than it would be to haul it down the street or an hour away to a local mill and have it remade there. Oh, I know, trade policy. That is the only possible way such a system could work.
pdaly, I’m a big fan of algae-related biodiesel and am hopeful over time that we will burn it in our cars and furnaces (until other even better options come along). There is a lot of effort going into algae-biodiesel, but at the moment there isn’t enough of it made to make it broadly available. Also, in the US most of our cars are gasoline engines, not diesel, so we would need to convert our fleet as well. This is not to suggest any of this is a bad idea, but it is one that will take time and will also likely be part of a more diverse (I hope!) solution to our energy needs.
And another mind boggler is that when electric plants get shut down (coal fired or other), many times they get sold to companies that come in, strip out the equipment and send it all over the world for power plants in other countries. The problem is though, that the person who bought the equipment did not buy the plant – so whatever pollution in the ground there is there is STILL there.
Great article. Made me cry and also think of Cleveland, which in the early 90s reinvented itself but now is barely hanging on.
The steel mill in my little town once made the highest quality stainless steel in the world; the steel still shines on the exterior of NYC’s Chrysler Building. When the mill closed for the last time, the buyers took everything apart very carefully and shipped it to China, put it back together and started making steel again. Makes you want to scream, doesn’t it?
The steel industry in the US was killed by foreign steel dumped into our markets, for less than it cost the foreign companies to make it.
Tonight I really feel like my name, ohioblue.
Yep – the entire thing. What I find really weird is that we are getting some of our best investigative stuff from people like The Enquirer…and our best political/social/economic stuff from someone at Sports Illustrated. Mind Boggling. A great piece.
In the last two years both SI and ESPN wrote devastating pieces on the death of Pat Tillman and the cover up that “news” organizations were not touching or could not be bothered to do.
Amazing article. It should win an award.
And it should shame the purveyors of “real” journalism like the NYT and WaPo that a “sports” publication has the chops to write what they can’t or won’t.
That would do quite well in either the Times Magazine or Play magazine. But seeing Detroit through the lens of sports was essential because Detroit is nationally represented by sports, the good(the Red Wings) and the bad(the Lions), in ways that other cities aren’t. Sports is among the things that give people outside Detroit a hint that it is not entirely a ruin and people are living ordinary lives there. Of course the auto industry supported many of those ordinary lives.
Checking to see if bmaz is conscious.
If I am correct, that is Michigan Central Station in Marcy’s graphic; a once state of the art train depot. Perhaps the real measure is contained here, in a photo essay of the Packard Motor plant, which was the Taj Mahal of automobile factories in the world when it was built and for decades thereafter. No longer.
Yep. It’s pretty. Like a lot of the burnt out buildings downtown.
It’s a tragedy what has befallen the Michigan Central Station in Detroit. It’s interior though not on the scale of Grand Central Station certainly rivaled it in aesthetics. It’s now a memorial to the failed urban policy of the last 50 years by both Republican and Democratic administrations.
For whom the bell tolls…
I grew up in South Bend, and was there when Studebaker closed. We had a bunch of other heavy industry, smaller but successful, including Bendix and the fabulous South Bend Lathe. We also have a couple of colleges and universities. It was enough, but downtown died, about the time the beautiful elm trees went.
I often think it would be good to make something for a living instead of lawyering.
The rule of law, as we have found out so painfully, is essential to our freedoms. Good lawyers are most valuable…bad a great liability. Manufacture some legislation to get back our rights.
That was a great article, thanks! I liked his book “Tuesday’s With Morie” also.
I saw this BBC article just now about biofuel used (50/50 mix) in a plane.
Why can’t the same fuel be used in a new green car from Detroit?
It could be called the “algea Green Car” and jump start the new earth friendly auto industry.
Seems if the fuel is good enough to fly a plane it should be powerful enough to push an auto (and auto industry) forward.
I have no illusions. I know it could happen where I live. And the bailout money will be long gone. Wall Street is getting more than its share. It’s ridiculous and extravagant. Detroit isn’t getting what it needs. But, because it’s among the first in line, at least it’s getting something. So many places and industries will be shut out completely, because there will be nothing left.
Well, OK, I did read the whole thing. And I felt the human interest in the story. My brother lives in Romeo. His daughter is a teacher who lives near Van Dyke and 24-Mile road. I went to the University of Michigan.
But I kept waiting for Albom to turn the story around. I kept waiting for him to write about what EW has written about– How Detroit IS modernizing. How they ARE making the new cars that we really do need. And how Michigan’s basketball team is winning again. And all that stuff that EW, bmaz, and others have been writing about why manufacturing is important, and we’re beginning to do it right.
But Albom didn’t give us any kind of vision about that. He didn’t even write that Detroit Will Rise Again.
We need to be in more than survival mode. We need to be in a mood to adapt. We need to show the world that the much maligned Detroit “business model” is not so bad as those union-hating Southern Senators have alleged. In fact, what I hope Obama will do is to highlight the automakers who are adapting, and hold them up as shining lights who can lead us through the depression. Take the whipping boy, and turn him into a hero. Don’t let those Southern Senators have the last word about who are the losers in this fiasco. The real whipping boys should be the rogue financiers like Madoff, and the fancy boys on Wall Street who got us into this mess.
Bob in HI
I sent the link to two people I work with who are trying to rebuild the possibility of 1) a solvent automaker, and 2) a prosperous city.
They will be moved. They may be able to help effect the change Detroit needs. They are trying.
Marcy, Leen, dakine,
Thank you.
We ARE all Detroit.
Mitch reminding us. Charlie Rose’s interview with him about this article ripped my heart out as well as the article. Mitch is the real deal
Funny, how the country couldn’t get enough of the Motor City decades ago. It. Defined. The. County.
It. Still. Does.
Thanks for posting this Marcy….it made me weep. I was thinking about the jazz festival held every year at Hart Plaza. Several years ago I took a young couple visiting from California to the festival. The young man had never been to Detroit….never been out of California….and he kept saying “I can’t believe this…black people, white people, old people, young people all together in this small space having a good time….this would never happen in L.A.” There is something really appealing about the down-to-earth, gritty, feet-on-ground quality of Detroit.
Glenn’s up at the mothership…
Many cities were affected, but the ‘68 riots contributed significantly to Detroit’s plight as well.
A site worth visiting, in depth, is “DetroitYES – The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.” Truly a feast for the senses.
DetroitYes.com
Minor correction. The Detroit riot was the previous year; it began on July 23, 1967. A year later, the city and the entire metropolitan area was in the streets again – the Detroit Tigers won the American League Pennant and reached the 1968 World Series taking on superstars Bob Gibson, Lou Brock and the rest of the St Louis Cardinals. It was an amazing turn-around for Detroit and a healing experience for all of Michigan (but mostly for southeastern Michigan). The Cardinals were considered the far superior team and were expected to blow by the inferior Tigers. It looked like they’d do it, too. The Cards were up 3 games to 1 and were ready to pop the champagne after one more victory. But Detroit wasn’t about to quit when they were down – and the Tigers won game 5, game 6, and the deciding game 7. New songs were written; dances invented; babies conceived; mostly, heads were held high.
Every now and then, SI really hits a home run. This is one.
#24 the rule of law as expressed at this moment is who has the most money to buy off the system usually wins… why hold illusions about it?
i liked the article for making the case that where detroit goes, the rest of the usa may have to take a look at going as well..
That is a fine, powerful article, Marcy. Thank you for the link. The last time I saw Governor Granholm interviewed, she seemed almost in tears. The word most descriptive of Senator Corker and the others is despicable.
This is the part that really NEEDS TO BE RELEARNED:
If we don’t stop worshiping the non-producing management class and get back to work making tangible things we are fucked.
Albom was on Charlie Rose talking about Detroit and what he was trying to express in the article on 1/9/2009. It’s not yet up on Rose’s website, and full clips aren’t usually available there anyway. But it might hit YouTube within the next few days.
Thanks. Would like to see that.
Where I grew up..I know and feel everything Mitch is talking about. I worked on the line at the Chrysler plant in Hamtramck. I hung out at the West End Hotel at fifteen where some of the Jazz guys would go, and we would be outside listening while we shot craps against the wall. This is very sad for me, but on a bright note here is a link to a coney Island restaurant that sells online the best coney island hot dogs del todo mundo. And if in Detroit go down to Lafayette Blvd and show up in person.
http://www.americanconeyisland.com/coneykit.htm
Thanks Marcy, great stuff. I headlined the article on my facebook page.
Incidentally, we went and saw Gran Torino tonight. Eastwood’s character worked in the Ford factory his whole life. It really catches the feeling of the changes to places in the Upper Midwest and how they have degraded over time. Solid film.
anyone there?
Interesting take on Specter doing Rove’s bidding and planning Anita Hill II on Holder.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..369/683049
EW what do you think?
me thinks Specter is about to do a “Terri Shiavo” on himself
keep telling us how Eric Holder could be an incompetent toady nitwit criminal just like abu gonzo
I don’t really like specter casting aspersions at Holder
but I DO LOVE the fact that specter is erasing any doubt about abu gonzo
who could doubt that abu gonzo is an incompetent toady nitwit criminal ???
repuglitards are gonna LOVE specter in 2010
and America is gonna remember that even repuglitards admit that abu gonzo is a war criminal, and not much else
cept the fact that specter didn’t say SHIT about abu gonzo until it was politically necessary to say something about abu gonzo
Petra, one of the world’s wealthiest cities in the 1st century BCE, known for its engineering and its wealth from the Spice Trade (in what is now the region near where all those rockets are being fired between Gaza and Israel, FWIW).
Also reminds me that the story of King Midas seems to be a metaphor for the earliest coinage. Midas died of starvation, because ‘everything that he touched turned to gold’, even his food. This seems to have been a function of the social upheaval and political turmoil of Midas (who almost certainly used his wealth – one of the world’s first ‘plutocrats’ – to control political power), who lived along what’s now the coast of Turkey or Syria around the 8th century BCE.
I often think that CDOs, and CDSs, and eComm are the new, socially and economically destabilizing forms of trade and money — probably the first since the 15th c when corporations began to rear their primordial heads. And mostly before that, you have to go back to Petra, and then back to Midas.
So yeah, someone remembers ‘Petra’.
Means a lot more than ‘rock’, and also associated with ‘red rock’ (cinnebar), from which comes the metal mercury.
(You never cease to come up with things that surprise.)
as Detroit once benefited from geography, it now suffers
the Great Lakes were once the center of the auto universe
now the auto universe has moved on, and Detroit is still there
does anybody remember that Petra was once the center of the trading world ???
trade moved on, and Petra is still there
I don’t know what to tell anybody about this, and I don’t know what it means. But it’s gotta mean somethin …
hey freep… was lookin for you yesterday – I was think about the primordial ooze after that shitty punt bounced off weddle’s helmet…
The ooze….
It burns.
I get melted next Sunday methinks.