Let's Invest in the Real Detroit

Over the past month, "Detroit" has lurched to the forefront of headline news. The New York Times, for instance, has called for "Saving Detroit from Itself." "Just Say No to Detroit," retorted The Wall Street Journal.

It's long past time, however, that someone pointed out the obvious. Not only do Detroit's proud residents take offense at the national media's use of their city's name as a synonym for the American auto industry; it also makes no sense to keep the label "Detroit" affixed to corporations that have long since been transformed by suburbanization, global outsourcing of production, and transnational mergers and acquisitions.

So, yes, let's debate what to do about the impending implosion of GM, Ford, or Chrysler. But in this period of widespread economic and social crises, let's also understand that more profound insights await us if we take a broader perspective of the dilemma that Detroit poses to America.

Detroit's story ranks among the greatest "boom and bust" narratives of history. The city was once of the world's great centers of industrial wealth creation and home to roughly two million people. East Coasters flocked to the "Paris of the Midwest" as immigrants came from the Old World. African American migrants, drawn from the South to help power the "arsenal of democracy" during World War II, would proceed to create the land called Motown. Meanwhile, visitors from around the globe marveled at the technological advances embodied in Detroit's assembly lines, while its labor movement created the model for industrial democracy.

But even amid the prosperous times of the post-World War II era, Detroit was losing jobs and residents to white flight and suburbanization. Living in Detroit for the past eight years while teaching at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, I became intimately connected to both sides of the city/suburb divide.

For four decades following the urban rebellion of 1967, Detroit and its suburbs became locked in a material battle over a shrinking pie and an ideological war over who was to blame for the region's problems. Castigating the crime and corruption of Detroit, the predominantly white suburbs acted to siphon residents and investment away from the city. Now these same suburbs are hemorrhaging from outsourcing, downsizing, and brain drain. I've watched scores of local students use the high-quality, subsidized education provided by the University of Michigan as a ticket to leave the state for jobs on the coasts.

For thousands of inner-city Detroiters, however, the auto industry collapsed more than a generation ago. The manufacturing base of the city proper plummeted 50 percent between 1967 and 1982 and has dwindled down much further since. As a result, Detroit's landscape is littered with abandoned factories scattered among tens of thousands of dilapidated homes and vacant lots. Cursed with the misfortune of taking power just as stagflation and global competition began to undermine the local economy, Coleman Young and a series of African American mayors tried in vain to stop the city's bleeding.

I have witnessed first-hand the pain generated by entrenched discrimination, escalating violence, and failing schools. And yet, what Detroit has ultimately offered me is the hope and possibility of a better future.

To understand why, we need to grasp the wisdom of Detroit's 93-year-old philosopher-in-residence, Grace Lee Boggs. Where others see "blight," Boggs sees "place and space to begin anew." She challenges us to see the demise of industrial culture as liberation from a way of living that has proven to be unsustainable.

While Michigan's automakers urgently need to produce greener cars to stay viable and curb emissions, Detroit's most visionary residents recognize that that there are no simple solutions to their problems. They have learned to delink their fate from both short-sighted corporations that view themselves as too big to fail and an extreme form of materialism that privileges money relations over human relations. Rather than wait for a purely technological fix, community activists, nonprofit organizations, and socially-conscious entrepreneurs are struggling to rebuild the economy from the ground up, creating new projects that reflect the values of a truly postindustrial society.

The credit crunch is wreaking havoc everywhere. Still, you won't find indoor mall sales down in Detroit this holiday season because there are no shopping malls of that sort within its city limits. You won't find any Circuit City stores shutting down in Detroit because neither that retailer nor most other national big box chains have any presence in the city. What you can find in Detroit are intensely local small businesses with an intensely loyal patronage.

Furthermore, reflecting a turn toward self-reliance in a climate of material deprivation, Detroit has been the birthplace of hundreds of community gardens, as well as a growing number of larger urban farms. While some grow organic produce, others grow ornamental flowers. But what they collectively grow is a renewed sense of community -- connecting neighbor with neighbor, elders with youth, and teachers with students while heightening the regard of all for the gifts of nature.

If vacant lots have been the wellspring of urban agriculture, empty buildings and low-cost housing have boosted the independent arts scene. Beyond the establishment of live/work lofts that are fixtures across urban America, Detroit is home to dozens of non-commercial collectives of hip-hop performers, spoken work poets, techno musicians, and visual artists who are revitalizing and remaking the city's image.

Even a nascent bike-driven economy of commuters, messengers, and distributors is taking root within Motown, offering a cost-effective medium for businesses and consumers to reduce their carbon footprint while making transportation accessible to those who are too young to drive or can't afford to own a car.

No one pretends that these efforts are transforming the city, let alone the world, overnight. What they provide is not only a local means of spiritual survival but also a concrete and replicable model of what real change from the bottom up looks like. These are the people we must seek out when investing in the next Detroit.

Comments

[ahuffreader]

After only 3 months in California, people began assuming I am a native. I always belonged in California, open-minded, health-oriented, international, imaginative California. I'm so grateful I left Detroit. I've never once looked back regretfully. When I visit Detroit, I am a stranger. I can't believe I was born there and lived there for my first 25 years.

[oh-annalouise]

Thanks for the Detroit love. We need more of it, the way that hip liberals find it so easy to turn their backs on a blue collar city.
I love this town. We're doing amazing, world-changing things.

[lorla]

Finally, some Detroit love. I love my city, grit and all. Hey people, move back to the city. Buy a beautiful brick home for a song. Stop supporting the Targets and Best Buys in the suburbs except for what you absolutely can not get here. Stop being afraid of an all Black city. Stop lamenting the closing off schools and churches you once attended, because if you did not flee, they would still be open.
Racism is the reason we have problems. It is deep rooted, and will not go away until we can form a diverse united front of people, proud to call themselves Detroiters.

[in10se]

When you are obsolete you better find a new line of work. In my hometown we mined the clay to make the bricks to line the furnaces of the steel industry. The steel industry moved overseas and the bricks were made in South America. When the mine shut down the brick plant closed and the local business failed, the school closed and the kids were bused to another town. But I moved to another state, launched a new career and never looked back. My life has been far better than if I had stayed. I'm comfortably retired now. And ... I have indoor plumbing that I didn't have in my home town.

[StellaDuBois]

I forgot to ask -

Scott, are you a D-YES!er?

[DuganS1]

I like how some people use the negative slang term "outsourcing" to describe how a local business was displaced by a foreign one. Economic history is littered with the skeletons of companies that were put under by more efficient, lower cost producers.

[StellaDuBois]

They aren't more efficient and they're on;y ;pwer cost because their governments pick up costs our government doesn't.

If the US government re-imbursed GM for only 20% of the medical and retirement costs GM has paid over the last five years, GM would receive more than the bridge loan they are requesting.

--

Scott, this nation only functions on greed and money, which mean power. We don't have money. We only have each other, city and suburbs, as dysfunctional as we may be. Even L. Brooks Patterson realizes that. We would be much better off as part of Canada.

[ginsushark]

the black middle class also fled the Detroit city center a long long time ago.

how come youre teaching at U of M instead of Wayne State if you really care about the inner city?

urban gardens? poetry? do you have a more substancial view of the future to get people interested in reinvesting in detroit?

[shel3364]

I grew up outside of Detroit... The inner city has great bones and amazing potential. I'd sure love to see it rise from the ashes.

Grace Lee Boggs sounds like a very wise lady.

[Mildmannered]

Detroit needs to work hard on bringing in and developing new businesses.

[kstuff]

Thanks for your article. I'm a U of M grad. I have one friend my age that's remained in the state, besides myself. All others have fled for the coasts. I've stayed to take care of my older family members and out of love for my home state. It's getting harder by the day to pay bills, given that I'm self employed in the healthcare industry and even hospitals are hurting in this economy. Perhaps Detroit and the surrounding areas will make a comeback. But there's no hope for recovery without a bridge loan from Congress. The auto makers need the support of the people and the government, now.