Over the course of four weeks spanning December 2012 and January 2013, I read three books purchased on the cheap from Amazon.com. All of them pertained to the history of Detroit, the one-time “Paris of Southeastern Michigan.” Why, you might ask, would I spend so much time and energy reading about one city? The answer is that, other than insatiable curiosity and a desire to learn, I lived in the Detroit area off and on during the 1970s.
I am fascinated by its founding as a French outpost in 1701, its slow evolution toward a prosperous city, its role in the Underground Railroad, its politics and culture, and its development into an industrial powerhouse. But that rise also led to a steep decline as the U.S. automobile business fell apart, the European-American middle class left town, and poverty and despair took hold. Riots in 1943 and 1967—there had also been one during the Civil War—resulted from and strengthened racial animosities.
In time, Detroit became the buckle on the Rust Belt and a de facto black city. The population is now barely 700,000, about a third of the level shortly after World War II. European-Americans, formerly dominant, now comprise 12% of the populace, along with tiny pockets of Mexicans, Asians and other ethnic groups. Blacks rule in the Motor City (a name that scarcely applies today), and they do so unapologetically.
The Detroit they inherited is forever on the verge of bankruptcy and may be fairly described as a chaotic nightmare, a calamity, a God-forsaken hell-hole and an urban wasteland. It is a sad reflection of what once existed on the north shore of the Detroit River. Some 70,000 abandoned houses, factories and other buildings are tangible evidence of a catastrophically failed city. With exceptions, Detroit government is corrupt and/or incompetent. One can hardly help admiring those who still reside there—whether by choice or circumstance.
When I lived in a western suburb, I was aware of the city but entered it with some degree of trepidation. It was a good place to get killed. In 1974, for example, 714 murders took place, more than in any other American city. Rape, robbery, burglary, larceny and aggravated assault were and still are depressingly common. One Saturday in ’74, I decided to take a solitary drive. I filled the gas tank of my blue Volkswagen and tooled down Grand River Avenue all the way to Campus Martius, the historic center of the city. I looped around the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument (built in 1872), turned left on Gratiot Avenue up to Eight Mile Road, again turned left and headed back to the ’burbs and a vastly different world.
During this tour, in which I did not leave the confines of my car, I passed Detroit’s three primary sports facilities—Cobo Arena (where I once saw the Pistons play hoops), Tiger Stadium (saw both the baseball-playing Tigers and their football cousins, the Lions) and Olympia. I cannot claim to have seen the Red Wings play hockey at the “Old Red Barn,” but I did witness a couple of stirring rock concerts by Pink Floyd and Traffic.
Nearly 40 years have passed since the day I took my VW into the heart of Detroit. Much has changed. There have been heroic efforts to revive the downtown area, principally the construction of Ford Field and Comerica Park, and the refurbishment of a few other entities. Beyond that rather small, gentrified spot, however, one finds a crumbling city. Its problems are so immense that they now stretch into suburbs such as Southfield, Warren, Dearborn, Inkster and the one where I used to live.
Clear-eyed social scientists do not purport to have feasible solutions to the disaster that is Detroit. Feckless as it sounds from a man who lives in safe and distant Seoul, Korea, I can only hope that maybe, somehow, someday, things will start to get better.
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