I was all set to work on my the things I want to write about marriage, and go into more depth on healthcare, and a couple other topics. But to be honest, just clicking on a few blogs and news sites has me irritated by the commentary on Detroit.
Yes, of course, Detroit has been mismanaged for as long as I can remember, and the City Council is astonishingly corrupt. There’s a news item floating around about a Board of Education member who struggles to write a complete sentence. Salaries and benefits that should have been reined in a long time ago, haven’t been, and now the city is dysfunctional in countless ways.
But it’s not just the city government that’s dysfunctional — there is virtually no middle class, let alone upper class, left. (Yes, there are a few such neighborhoods left — Sherwood Forest, Green Acres, Palmer Woods, East English Village and Indian Village, according to a friend.) Education levels are low and crime is high, and the number of vacant lots where homes once stood has grown so much that the current proposal (not sure how far along this is towards being implemented) is to basically deem some neighborhoods beyond hope, provide only essential services there, and try to get people to move to other, more viable neighborhoods instead. (Here’s an exercise: go to Craig’s List and pull up Detroit houses for sale — then try to accustom yourself to the asking prices: not 100,000, but 10,000.)
And there is perpetually talk that some new planned redevelopment project will revitalize the city, ever since the “Renaissance Center” of the 70s. (To my mind, the emphasis has always been misplaced, on big “showpiece” projects rather than improving the education and work skills and work ethic of the residents.) Has Detroit hit rock bottom? I don’t know. Even if it has, there’s no guarantee that Detroit will climb upwards rather than being mired there.
To be sure, there are some good places — the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Historical Museum, and John King Used Books (which I haven’t been to since my grad school days), and there’s a science museum which periodically closes and then re-opens. There are the restaurants of Greektown (though I haven’t been there recently and don’t know whether the casinos have transformed the area for good or ill), and Eastern Market (another place I keep meaning to visit the next time we visit my folks in the suburbs), and probably large numbers of “hidden gems.”
But the young and hip that Detroit periodically hopes to attract to some neighborhood that they hope will become “up and coming” have mostly found their nightlife in Royal Oak and Ferndale. Even the American Jewelry and Loan featured on “Hardcore Pawn” is actually on the other side of the 8 Mile border.
And at the same time, there are places which are gone now — the State Fair is no more, with the fairgrounds being touted as yet another site for “redevelopment” and yet another plan for commuter rail. The former flagship Hudson’s department store has been closed ever since I remember — I only remember news articles periodically about hopes for finding a new use for it — and apparently (I looked this up) it was demolished some time ago.
My point being: this is not the time for carping and criticizing and pointing out that Obama boasted of saving Detroit. This is a time for hoping (and/or praying) that Snyder, Orr, Bing (a good guy, so far as I can tell), and the true civic leaders in the city can create the best possible conditions for Detroit to become, if not prosperous, then at least functional again.
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