Detroit Fights Its Way Back from the Brink - Toronto Star article
Thought I would share the article linked below from the Toronto Star, on the subject of Detroit's renewal.
Detroit fights its way back from the brink
The city of Detroit may be a symbol of failure but a random tour uncovers abundant hope, from entrepreneurship to culture
As Detroit emerges from bankruptcy The Star takes a look at some of the people who have been making a difference in the city.
By: Jim Coyle News,Published on Fri Dec 12 2014
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/12/12/de
“When you’re at zero, anything can happen.”
— Detroit: A Play, by Lisa D’Amour,2011
DETROIT—As much as anyone, Luther Keith has had a close-up, lifelong look at his city’s rise, terrible fall and, as many Detroiters hope, ongoing reinvention.
Keith was 17 that summer Sunday in 1967. He’d gone to 8 a.m. mass at St. Agnes Catholic Church on 12th St. By the time he stepped back into the morning, Detroit was changing before his eyes.
Keith saw people breaking into stores. A shoe-store owner near his house would be beaten to death. At the time, he didn’t know what was going on or how bad it was.
“So that afternoon I played baseball. I’m playing the outfield and I’m looking up and I’m seeing black smoke coming up across the city.”
http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/t....letterbox.jpg Luther Keith runs Arise Detroit, an organization that promotes and organizes local initiatives to improve city life.
The coach who drove him home from the ballpark was white. “When he got about five blocks from my house, I said, ‘John, just drop me off here.’ ” Keith wanted his coach to reach the safety of the freeway.
“People were throwing bricks at cars and things like that. I shudder to think what would have happened if we had driven down that block.”
When it was over, most of the commercial strip near St. Agnes lay in ashes.
The riots that swept black neighbourhoods in Detroit and elsewhere across the United States in 1967 were among America’s defining events, erupting along racial fault lines still quaking today.
From its 1950s peak of population and prosperity, the city’s decline had already begun. With the riots, the white exodus shifted into overdrive.
People, investment and jobs left, taking with them the tax base to support schools and services. Over decades, the city crumbled into an apocalyptic landscape of decay, poverty and crime.
“It just ripped the heart out of Detroit,” says Keith.
But this summer, the city’s downward spiral of half a century reached bottom, Detroiters hope, with the “Grand Bargain” that averted bankruptcy.
This week, the city formally emerged from bankruptcy protection, setting out on the challenging road back to sustainability.
