Time cover story: The Death and Possible Life of a Great City

[RealityCheck]

Daniel Okrent, a 61-year-old major league journalist and "a Detroit native [northwest side] who recently went home to find out what went wrong," tells Time readers what he found. His cover report for the Oct. 5 print issue went online today.

Old friends and new acquaintances, people who confront the city's agony every day, told me, "I hope this isn't going to be another article about how terrible things are in Detroit."

It is — and it isn't.

Either way, lots of red meat to chew on here -- including harsh comments about CAY and John Dingell.

Link again.

[R8RBOB]

Very good piece. It is worth reading.

[Det_ard]

I've been pleasantly surprised at the quality and breadth of writing thus far from the various publications. I expect to see even better work as they get the initial standard stories out of the way and gain more familiarity with the city.

[PCE]

Fantastic article. We need the national attention. In my opinion, Detroit can't bring herself back on her own. To me, it's doubtful that the region or even the State can pull off what's needed. We need Federal help. I'm not talking about throwing money at the problem. More like huge Federal tax incentives for manufacturing companies to set up shop here.

Back in the day, Detroit saved the worlds ass with it's manufacturing might. I think it's time to call in our marker.
I'm wondering what the group thinks about alternate energy production. Solar panels, wind turbines, etc. We have the infrastructure, the brain power, the employment base to make something happen. We also have the space. Imagine the Packard site with a state of the art production facility. Jobs would go along way to curing a lot of the ills we face.

Thoughts?

[lilpup]

I think it's time to call in our marker.

As far as the rest of the nation is concerned Detroit already got more than its share with the $$ that went to GM and Chrysler.

[PCE]

As far as the rest of the nation is concerned Detroit already got more than its share with the $$ that went to GM and Chrysler.

I'm not sure if I agree with you or not. In my little corner of the world, there was a huge backlash for the auto bailouts. Until the local GM dealership got its pink slip. At that point attitudes seemed to change.
Like I say, my little corner of the world. I can't comment regarding the national perspective.
I'm hoping these Time articles will help to change negative opinions about Detroit.

[R8RBOB]

As far as the rest of the nation is concerned Detroit already got more than its share with the $$ that went to GM and Chrysler.

I have to disagree with you. Corporations, not the city of Detroit got bailout money. Socialism at work. I think I know where PCE is going with this. Detroit needs to be treated as if a disaster like Loma Prieta or Katrina has hit the city. Detroit needs a bailout but throwing money on the problem is not going solve the problems that is plaguing the city.

[lilpup]

I have to disagree with you. Corporations, not the city of Detroit got bailout money. Socialism at work. I think I know where PCE is going with this. Detroit needs to be treated as if a disaster like Loma Prieta or Katrina has hit the city. Detroit needs a bailout but throwing money on the problem is not going solve the problems that is plaguing the city.

You differentiate between the auto companies and the city. Most people nationally do not understand that the City of Detroit's issues are largely separate from the automakers' struggles.

[sirrealone]

PCE, you are right, but there is work to be done here. This is our chance. This is the chance that the world is going to have to see Detroit. Along with that, they're going to see or not see exactly why we should be relevent and why we should get the federal help that you refer to. If, at the end of the year, the key takeaways are corrupt politicians, terrible local governments, unsolved crimes, too many crimes, and too little education, then we're going to lose.

Because if that happens, nobody is going to care. People will have spent a year trying to care but they will realize that it's a waste.

Instead, I hope that you can see positive stories. I want to see stories of people who fight back against crime, not by vigilante justice, but through more teaching and humane methods. I want to see stories like the series on Fletcher Field that gets zero attention, but is a demonstration of a community trying something, anything to get their neighborhood back. A year from now, wouldn't it be nice to see stories like that, as well as:
--The success of the mayor in turning around a key issue. Which one, doesn't matter. Any of them.
--The first year outcome of the Cobo regional deal and how that can help expand regionalism
--Crimes solved because people turned the criminals in
--Students lives turned around because they stayed in school.

Detroit and Michigan have felt ignored for a long time. It's front and center right here and now. What are we going to do with it?

[PCE]

Very well stated sirrealone.

[Det_ard]

We need to get our own act together before we ask the other 49 states to subsidize our foolishness.

[TKshreve]

There is a lot of ammo for the nation to use against us. Couple that with southern politicians who undermine any attempt to rise and we end up with a lot of gum on the face.

I admit, it is not going to be easy to "180" the perceptions and attitudes inside and outside of Detroit. Right now, it's our only choice. Sierralone created a very simple and accurate list of where to start:

--The success of the mayor in turning around a key issue. Which one, doesn't matter. Any of them.
--The first year outcome of the Cobo regional deal and how that can help expand regionalism
--Crimes solved because people turned the criminals in
--Students lives turned around because they stayed in school.

I just can't see where this would ever start. Call me pessemistic, or show me something of substance that points towards anything getting done on that list. Here's to another shot at it.

[sirrealone]

To clarify, I don't think that they have to solve everything or even one thing on the list, but just show steps in the right direction. We have to show the country that we care about ourselves before we can expect the country to care about us.

[RealityCheck]

One beauty of Time's full-team treatment can be seen already on their Detroit Blog, where Darrell Dawsey this afternoon comments on the cover story "from a slightly different angle."

He's a generation younger than Okrent, a different race and grew up on the other side of Woodward. [[Yes, yes -- I may have put the most important difference last.)

Here's a sample of how a writer who "came of age on the eastside of Detroit in the 1970s and 1980s" sees the Coleman legacy:

I won't argue that voters left him in office too long, but I'm loath to agree with the contention that he "cared more about retribution than resurrection." . . . I remember well the resentment and outright race hatred directed at Young, the city's then-nascent black political leadership and its growing black and brown population. Although much of the real power and money in Detroit remained in the hands of white pols and business leaders -- and still does today -- white residents felt that Young's win meant they'd somehow lost ground.

. . . As Young himself was later quoted as saying, "White people find it extremely hard to live in an environment they don't control." What seemed to whites like defiance and dismissal from Young was usually interpreted by black folks as, "Well, with or without you, we've got to go on." . . . But when so many people and businesses fled, taking a hunk of tax base with them, my parents' generation found themselves holding the bag and being forced to soldier on anyway.

Blog link again.

[Lowell]

I found the article disappointing. It carries the same tired litany of ills with which we on this forum are so familiar. Nothing new is offered either in details, context or assessment. In the end the writer, like most who come to ‘stare into the abyss’ as I call it, ends up like so many others have, gravely shaking his head and offering no insight.

Some of the usual simplistic gloss-overs are there too-- the 67 riot gets profiled as the impetus for a flight pattern that was fifteen years in motion with hundreds of thousands having already moved since population peak. No mention is made of its acceleration by tax advantages, public financed expressways that destroyed houses, businesses and chopped up neighborhoods in Detroit while easing movement to tax subsidized new factories, houses and plain old space and country air.

Then the ghost of Coleman Young gets resurrected, reamed and all but called racist while L. Brooks who did as much to stoke that divide gets a half paragraph of marshmallows tossed at him. None of the many other antagonists of that circular firing squad are called to task.

Similarly the Devil's Night ghost is brought forth while the triumph of Angel's Night of which the author was either ignorant or chose to ignore is not mentioned. Every year tens of thousands of volunteer angels unite, patrol their neighborhoods and make that formerly infamous night one of the safest and most arson free nights of the year.

The UAW gets more blame than the auto companies and John Dingell is far more the blame than the [not mentioned] giveaway trade treaties did far more to destroy American auto industry in particular and manufacturing in general.

I felt this article could have been completely comfortable in the Wall Street Journal of Fox news.

Sorry, but if you are doing the D with that much emphasis, I expect more.

[lilpup]

I felt this article could have been completely comfortable in the Wall Street Journal of Fox news.

And this is what scares me the most about this project. There have been times I thought this entire project might be little more than a right wing bashing of what has been noted as the most Democratic city in the US. The regurgitated CNNMoney articles are particularly ugly.

Okrent, on the other hand, trots out many of the same things the far left does, too, re: Dingell and and the autos.

So far the pieces from Gray, which seem the most even-handed, and the SI stories are the ones I like the most.

[EastSider]

I found the article disappointing. It carries the same tired litany of ills with which we on this forum are so familiar. Nothing new is offered either in details, context or assessment. In the end the writer, like most who come to ‘stare into the abyss’ as I call it, ends up like so many others have, gravely shaking his head and offering no insight.

Similarly the Devil's Night ghost is brought forth while the triumph of Angel's Night of which the author was either ignorant or chose to ignore. Every year tens of thousands of volunteer angels unite, patrol their neighborhoods and make that formerly infamous night one of the safest and most arson free nights of the year.

Maybe it's different from where you sit, but down here, actually in the city, I don't see much to "celebrate" that we have to have citizen patrols so the city doesn't burn down.

Yeah, rah, rah, people volunteer. The sense of community is so strong and all that other bullshit.

Wouldn't it be more meaningful if we could treat those nights just like any other? Seems like every mayor learns the hard way about ignoring it, though. Archer got his ass burned his first Halloween, and so did Kwame. I haven't heard much about the issue from Bing yet, so better get your marshmallows ready.

[PCE]

Some of the usual simplistic gloss-overs are there too-- the 67 riot gets profiled as the impetus for a flight pattern that was fifteen years in motion with hundreds of thousands having already moved since population peak. No mention is made of its acceleration by tax advantages, public financed expressways that destroyed houses, businesses and chopped up neighborhoods in Detroit while easing movement to tax subsidized new factories, houses and plain old space and country air.

.

I agree with your comments but I think it's important to realize that the vast majority of America doesn't understand Detroit like most of the members of this forum do. I was clueless to a lot of issues in Detroit and I lived there for 40 some years. Lets teach the folks at Time. Explain the ramifications to the city when Packard closed its doors. The tax policies that encouraged flight from the city. I have learned a tremendous amount of information from this forum and this website. Others can to.
Time is living in Detroit for a year. It seems like an opportunity to me.

Respectfully submitted for your comments

[Lonyo exit]

How is this an opportunity?

People, listen to how this project is portrayed elsewhere. Watch the editor of Time on Morning Joe on MSNBC, or articles in dailies across the country. They are in Detroit for one thing - to show us as the biggest fuck ups in the country.You know how people here talk about backwoods hillbillies in Kentucky or idiots shooting each other in some third world country? That's the tone the national media takes on about us. We are the "other" to be studied, like animals in a zoo.

Nearly every explanation of why Time came here for a year says it's to show the rest of the country where it could be headed if it did all the stupid shit we here have done over the years. They're not here saying look at the solutions Detroit found, because Detroit hasn't found any. They are here to show us as the epitome of bad thinking, whether as a bunch of racists on either side, or shortsighted sprawlers who didn't have the sense to keep the city together and not create unsustainable exurbs, or yahoos who didn't have the sense to branch out from a single industry economy.

Why would anyone be excited about outsiders coming in to point to us as examples of all the wrong things?

[EastSider]

How is this an opportunity?

People, listen to how this project is portrayed elsewhere. Watch the editor of Time on Morning Joe on MSNBC, or articles in dailies across the country. They are in Detroit for one thing - to show us as the biggest fuck ups in the country.You know how people here talk about backwoods hillbillies in Kentucky or idiots shooting each other in some third world country? That's the tone the national media takes on about us. We are the "other" to be studied, like animals in a zoo.

Nearly every explanation of why Time came here for a year says it's to show the rest of the country where it could be headed if it did all the stupid shit we here have done over the years. They're not here saying look at the solutions Detroit found, because Detroit hasn't found any. They are here to show us as the epitome of bad thinking, whether as a bunch of racists on either side, or shortsighted sprawlers who didn't have the sense to keep the city together and not create unsustainable exurbs, or yahoos who didn't have the sense to branch out from a single industry economy.

Why would anyone be excited about outsiders coming in to point to us as examples of all the wrong things?

How is this an opportunity? It was somebody in the media that uncovered the text messages and brought down Kwame. Maybe Time can pick up where they left off and uncover the full scope of the rot in this city/county/metro/state.

The DPS real estate dealings gives them the perfect opening. An organization like Time has the money to spend on the project and more importantly it's an outside group, so they aren't beholden to any local interests.

[PCE]

How is this an opportunity?

People, listen to how this project is portrayed elsewhere. Watch the editor of Time on Morning Joe on MSNBC, or articles in dailies across the country. They are in Detroit for one thing - to show us as the biggest fuck ups in the country.You know how people here talk about backwoods hillbillies in Kentucky or idiots shooting each other in some third world country? That's the tone the national media takes on about us. We are the "other" to be studied, like animals in a zoo.

Nearly every explanation of why Time came here for a year says it's to show the rest of the country where it could be headed if it did all the stupid shit we here have done over the years. They're not here saying look at the solutions Detroit found, because Detroit hasn't found any. They are here to show us as the epitome of bad thinking, whether as a bunch of racists on either side, or shortsighted sprawlers who didn't have the sense to keep the city together and not create unsustainable exurbs, or yahoos who didn't have the sense to branch out from a single industry economy.

Why would anyone be excited about outsiders coming in to point to us as examples of all the wrong things?

I disagree with you Lonyo. Why would Time drop such a big chunk of change in Detroit just to show the nation that we are idiots? They could do that very easily whithout the investment that they've made.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I pray to God that I'm not.

[RealityCheck]

Let's teach the folks at Time. I have learned a tremendous amount of information from this forum and this website. Others can too.

Time is living in Detroit for a year. It seems like an opportunity to me.

I liked that suggestion yesterday afternoon . . . and do even more now that I've seen a comment posted this morning at the think Detroit blog in response to a Thursday afternoon post:

DanO said...I'm the author of the cover story in this week's Time -- and I can handle the criticism! More importantly, I'd like to get in touch with the author of this blog, which I'm sure will be a valuable resource to my colleagues and me as our Detroit reporting rolls out over the next 12 months.

Cooper, Could you post your email address so we might communicate directly?

Thanks,
Dan Okrent

Encouraging openness, that.
And a possible opportunity for Lowell or perhaps a small group of DY'ers to engage too, as PCE sensibly suggests.

The Time editor-at-large, who lives in or near New York City, understandably didn't post contact info . . though he's on Facebook and LinkedIn as Daniel Okrent.

To be clear: I'm not volunteering to assemble a DY delegation . . . just floating this info for consideration by Lowell and/or anyone else interested. Clearly this forum's members also have knowledge, resources and viewpoints that could "be a valuable resource to my colleagues and me as our Detroit reporting rolls out over the next 12 months."

[vetalalumni]

I agree with your comments but I think it's important to realize that the vast majority of America doesn't understand Detroit like most of the members of this forum do. I was clueless to a lot of issues in Detroit and I lived there for 40 some years. Lets teach the folks at Time. Explain the ramifications to the city when Packard closed its doors. The tax policies that encouraged flight from the city. I have learned a tremendous amount of information from this forum and this website. Others can to.
Time is living in Detroit for a year. It seems like an opportunity to me.

Respectfully submitted for your comments

Rochelle Riley shares similar sentiments with you PCE.

http://freep.com/article/20091011/CO...te=fullarticle

Let's tell Time who's saving Detroit

By ROCHELLE RILEY
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Oct. 11, 2009

When I asked the question, I knew I would get mail.

But I had no idea just how much mail.

It has been pouring in since I wrote that Time magazine, as part of its inaugural package on Detroit's past and future, had featured a photograph of eight people that Time called The Committee to Save Detroit.

My simple question was this: Why were there no black men in the photograph?

• PREVIOUS COLUMN: Why no black men among Time's saviors of Detroit? --> http://freep.com/article/20091007/COL10/91007082/

I wasn't asking the question because I thought a token black man was necessary, but because half of Detroit's population comprises black men who are either largely responsible for -- or working to solve many of the city's problems. Knowing this, how could any committee seen as vital to helping Mayor Dave Bing save Motown, be void of black men?

Well, many, many people wondered the same. Included in many of the more than 1,000 e-mails sent in response to the question are the names of people you felt should have been in the picture. The list is too long to print. But in an upcoming column, based on your responses, I'll present the Committee that Detroiters Believe Will Save Detroit.

In anticipation, let me make clear: Time couldn’t take the picture at Ford Field. Everybody couldn't be in it. Everybody won't be on the upcoming list, either.
But after analyzing the names and going through the digital version of my own Rolodex, a clear pattern emerged about people who were conspicuous by their absence from the Time photo.

For instance, the photo included no spiritual leaders – not one minister. In a city that has as many churches as Detroit, is that possible?

The photo included no young people. The average age of those in the photo was 54 years, seven months. So where was Detroit’s next generation?

The photo included no white women. Was the late Maryann Mahaffey really the only representative of that group fighting to save the city?

And the photo included only one elected official: L. Brooks Patterson, the effective but divisive executive of neighboring Oakland County.

Some respondents were livid that Patterson was included, saying that he "hates Detroit" or would shut the city down if he could. But here's the thing, and it's about time that we started dealing with it: Detroit can no longer try to be an island, separate and apart from its suburbs and the rest of the state. Look at Patterson's inclusion as a symbol. Detroit will not survive without becoming an integral part of a region that must work together to survive. So whether it’s Patterson or someone else -- such as a representative from the fast-growing Macomb County -- Detroit has got to get over the "ours" and "theirs," insider-outsider thing.

Oh, there were naysayers among the respondents, a few dozen, to whom I wrote replies that began: "Hi. I've been expecting you ... " Their notes were based on the misguided belief that I felt that no white people should have been in the picture. Not what I wrote. Not what I believe. Or they sent the e-mail they keep for any time I begin a conversation about race, as if every discussion about what divides us most in Detroit is a negative event.

Folks, we're going to have the conversation, whether we do it ourselves in our own kitchen or on a national stage set by Time Inc.

The point of the photograph was that it represented those leading us to a New Detroit. The point of my question was: Can that future happen without any black men rising and taking a stand with Mayor Bing?

So keeping everything in perspective and all caveats in mind, please keep the names coming! Be thoughtful. Be respectful. And be truthful. If your Uncle Henry is doing great things on your street, I want to hear about him, possibly write about him. Detroit won't survive with him and others like him. But what I’m asking is who you see as a city leader, one of those standing at the front of the room, the front of the march, the front of the church, the front of the storm.

You’ve got until 9 a.m. sharp Wednesday morning to let me know!

[lo_to_d]

[QUOTE=Lowell;72291]I found the article disappointing. It carries the same tired litany of ills with which we on this forum are so familiar. Nothing new is offered either in details, context or assessment. In the end the writer, like most who come to ‘stare into the abyss’ as I call it, ends up like so many others have, gravely shaking his head and offering no insight.

I agree, pure and unadulterated crap! There wasn't one thing in that article that hasn't been written a hundred times before. What a waste! It's too bad they had someone who grew up here, who has all the same explanations on what has happened to Detroit, and the weak idea on what might save it, write that article. Scratch a little deeper to find the real opportunities currently in Detroit and stop that same nostalgic crap about how great it was and how you have it all figured out on why everything went wrong.

[DetroitPlanner]

I think he was a bit harsh on Dingell and Young. These guys are/were politicians trying to keep the ship afloat. As much bad as I've heard about Young, it was typically from old white people who were mostly scared that they were somehow losing power or control. I've said this before and I will say it again, under Young neighborhoods were in much better shape, grass got cut in the parks, garbage got picked up, police came when needed, houses did not become as blighted as they are now, the books were balanced, and there were recreation centers. We have had a lot worse mayors than Young.

I doubt Dingell was this guy's rep ever. I have lived in W Detroit near Dearborn for nearly my entire life [[40 plus years). Dingell was never my Rep. Wow a rep that repesented the business interests of his constituency. What a shock.