Detroitblog

I really like the way the blog focuses on people for being people, but at the same time I'm aware others will look at the blog differently, unacceptingly, and write off Detroit.

When you introduce someone from somewhere else to Detroitblog, how do you explain it to them?

I think the blog explains itself. The city is made up of many unique people. There is no need to explain it or make it easier for anyone to understand. That is what makes this place great.

Do you think an upper class New Yorker would recognize it that way?

New York City New Yorker? Sure. Have you been there? You see some of the craziest people there. They are on par with Detroit with the amount of unique characters they have. Even though New Yorkers think NYC is the center of the universe, I think they can acknowledge that it is probably the biggest melting pot of every type of person in this world.

It's not the blog that is the problem, it's the city. The blog just tells it like it is. Not everybody "gets" Detroit, and I don't know that it's possible to convince people to like it here when it just isn't their kind of place. Look at the bright side, though--Detroit being Detroit pretty much keeps the [[[[[[[[[s out, except downtown on game days. :)

I lived in New York for more than 15 years. I have several friends there who I've turned onto reading John's work at Detroitblog. They're the ones who are fascinated by the American urban experience and the American economic and racial experiences, and by the journey of Detroit and Detroiters [[like me) through that history. They are concerned people who want to know more about and to see what is happening in our poorest and most ill-served communities, and who understand that there are real living people involved in this and not just lines and points on a graph.

But if by "upper class" New Yorkers you mean people who've lived their whole lives in places like the Upper East Side or Westchester Co., or people who work, eat, and sleep Wall St., then you're talking about folks who most likely would not have understood or liked Detroit even in its heyday. After all, we were the center of what they feared most, uncultured manual laborers becoming middle class with families moving up the class, educational, and economic ladder to compete with them. Now, with much of our world in shambles around here, in part due to the work of people like those "upper class" New Yorkers, I would expect them to understand us and our city even less. In other words, they have already written us off.

But so what? Detroitblog tells the truth about Detroit, and does it beautifully and often in a very moving way, by showing the human-level experience of living, working, and surviving here. And it does it while generally managing not to step over the line into either sensationalism or sentimentality. That's a difficult feat in a place like this, that lends itself all too well to both of those things, as well as the ugly stereotyping that seems to creep into so much writing and discussion about this city. It is important in showing our reality, both good and bad, without hysteria to those who are willing to see.

Remember also that NYC is not anywhere near as monolithic as it seems. It too has plenty of working class and middle class areas populated by people who struggle to make ends meet. They are also subject to the looking down of noses by those same upper class New Yorkers at "outer borough" types. But I have lived in those neighborhoods, many of which reminded me of the Detroit of our healthier past. These people, many of them immigrants and "minorities," might not get our midwestern accents, and might not be able to take in Detroitblog, but I'm pretty certain they would at least understand our lives and experiences.

The thing that I love most about Detroitblog is that it is about human beings who happen to be in this area, and it transcends everything else. It’s one of two sites that I look forward to reading as soon as they're published, the other being Sunday Secrets. Both are about people on their most basic level.