I was surprised after my series on the ruin of Detroit that I did not hear from the few friends I still have there. I did hear a lot from many; family, friends and strangers. The comments were from both sides of the Detroit Decline. Some felt I was too harsh, others agreed and most of those had lived there and since moved away. But no one still fighting the good fight has turned up to defend the soot-covered Motor City.
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| Summer 1967 |
The New York Times did a silver-lining piece on Detroit. How some residents are attempting to hold on to selected portions of the city. How even the new mayor has stated that saving the whole city is folly, while encouraging residents to concentrate themselves in salvageable corridors. Neighbors are doing citizen patrols and paying private companies for services the city can no longer provide.
I would like to find some reason to jump on the Save Detroit bandwagon, but the logic of saving certain neighborhoods necessarily means abandoning others. It is indeed a triage situation, which when extended to the country as a whole would mean saving certain cities and letting others go. Detroit is going to be on everyone's list to let go.
R.I.P Motor City, let the wild flowers bloom, let the grasses cover over the scars of what once was.
