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

[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.

[RickBeall]

The "solution" was rather simplistic. If the government gives us a whole lot of money we will invent renewable energy. Heck, government could give that chunk of change to anyone. California would be even more appreciative. Workers follow the money, so it does not matter where they currently live.

I guess he just needed a pretty bow there at the end.

The real story would be: What is Detroit doing to help itself?

[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]

Wow, Lonyo - - way to go beyond seeing the glass as half-empty by smashing it and saying: "See, nothing there."

We clearly read different explanations of why Time came here for a year, or saw what we read through different lenses. I missed the one[[s) that indicated "they are here to show us as the epitome of bad thinking" and you evidently overlooked -- or disbelieved -- these:

We believe that Detroit right now is a great American story.

No city has had more influence on the country's economic and social evolution. . . . The city's rise and fall — and struggle to rise again — are a window into the challenges facing all of modern America. From urban planning to the crisis of manufacturing, from the lingering role of race and class in our society to the struggle for better health care and education, it's all happening at its most extreme in the Motor City.

As a story, Detroit has been misunderstood, underreported, stereotyped, avoided and exploited for decades. To get it right, we decided to become stakeholders.

. . . The hope is that through all these efforts, a narrative arc about Detroit will emerge over the next year that can somehow make a difference. While we do not intend to be cheerleaders or apologists, we do have a point of view: we want Detroit to recover and find its way into the future.

. . . Most of all, Detroiters are proud of their city. They fight to open charter schools. To jail criminals and bring back the rule of law. To band together and renew their neighborhoods. To open restaurants, stores and clinics. To make great music and try to beat the Yankees.
-- John Huey, Time, Inc. editor-in-chief

Our goal here on The Detroit Blog isn't to rehash clichéd stories about the region's problems. Some of that's unavoidable. But we're more interested in exploring key questions, like: What will it take for Detroit, and the region, to rebound? And who's developing the ideas that are best positioned to make that turnaround succeed?
-- Steven Gray, Time reporter

We rail against the portraits of us – as a city too poor, too drained, too far along in decline to ever bounce back – partially because many of us fear them to be true. . . . I'll do my best to add it all in, and that includes ingredients – voices, people, places from every quarter of this town – that don't always abound in the admixtures major media serves up.
-- Darrell Dawsey, freelance Time blogger

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

Why would anyone read posts by Lonyo, except to see examples of reflexive closed-mindedness?

[Lonyo exit]

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.

First, it was someone in the Kilpatrick administration that gave the text message to a LOCAL reporter. Second, Time is quite clear that it is not here to dig into corruption of city government, which is best done with people who have cultivated connections, such as the local media. National media generally don't dive into a city's corruption, especially when their ticket to leave town has already been stamped with a date a year from now.

What they plan to do is spelled out on Time's Assignment Detroit web page:

That's because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city's collapse. It's also about the erosion of the industries that helped build the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century. If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can't find a way to get up, what does that say about our future?

Again, it's quite clear we are being studied as the example of how bad things can be if you really fuck up. We are being shown as such to the rest of the country.

Though it's subtle and subconscious, note the language in the last sentence - Detroit is "it" but the rest of the country is "our" as in "we." Detroit is the Other. This is the premise of the coverage and what will drive it.

[Gsgeorge]

Again, it's quite clear we are being studied as the example of how bad things can be if you really fuck up. We are being shown as such to the rest of the country.

Though it's subtle and subconscious, note the language in the last sentence - Detroit is "it" but the rest of the country is "our" as in "we." Detroit is the Other. This is the premise of the coverage and what will drive it.

Maybe because it's true, and because we should be held as an example to the rest of America.

[Lonyo exit]

Despite Reality Check's manic-linking head in the sand approach to media coverage of the city, The New York Times a few days ago quoted Time officials stating explicitly why they are here:

Mr. Ghosh described Detroit as a “cautionary tale for urban planners, for social workers, for the rest of us. Everything that is happening elsewhere because of the economy started here a long time ago. It’s like a petri dish of all the things that have gone wrong.”

“We’re not here to fill some gap in coverage,” Mr. Tetzeli said. “The Free Press and The Detroit News have done some great work under difficult circumstances, including winning a Pulitzer this year,” he said, sitting at Slows, a barbecue restaurant. “We are here because we think Detroit stories, about recovery and the failure to recover, have resonance nationally because of the recession.”

[Lonyo exit]

Maybe because it's true, and because we should be held as an example to the rest of America.

That's what people do on shows like Jerry Springer - they get held up as fuck ups for other people to stare at and point to as less than themselves. You may find that appealing, but I don't.

[PCE]

Any thoughts of a contingent of DYes folks sitting down with some Time people? From my perspective, there are some very intelligent, educated people here who may help shed some light about Detroit

[jiminnm]

Dan Okrent - Cass Tech '65, UofM '69

[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.

[RealityCheck]

How cool it must be to have read-between-the-lines superpowers such as Lonyo's. Gotta be some extreme Lasik at work there.

How else to explain the ability to see beneath the surface of "we do have a point of view: we want Detroit to recover and find its way into the future" and recognize that's code for being "held up as fuck-ups for other people to stare at and point to as less than themselves"?
. . . Now ^ that's ^ some kinda special X-ray power, friends.

But wait, there's more.

You and I, with eyes obscured by sand or bleary from too much Jerry Springer, miss the sinister subtext hidden behind this:
"We're more interested in exploring key questions, like: What will it take for Detroit, and the region, to rebound? And who's developing the ideas that are best positioned to make that turnaround succeed?"

But laser-orbed Lonyo isn't fooled, nuh-uh. His trusty vision slices through the smokescreen like a light saber, exposing The True Message:
"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."

You may find that appealing, Lonyo, but I don't.

[Lowell]

I didn't mean to come off too shrill in my disappointments and I want to be clear that I welcome Time's magnifying glass. Hey, if nothing else they will pump some dollars into our ailing economy! But come on, this is Detroit and they have to expect to catch some flak.

A problem in any discussion of Detroit is the muddling of Detroit and Detroit -- the old heartland City of Detroit and the international metropolis of Detroit. Viewed from space it is just one big undifferentiated grid. But for many in our greater community there seems to be a need to psychologically wall themselves off from the challenges of the City of Detroit, as if it were on the other side of the country. They are like chipmunks frolicking in the lush foliage high in the tree, unconcerned that the tree is hollow and rotting at its base and its fall will also be theirs.

Other parts of the country don't make that differentiation. Warren, Waterford and Wyandotte are all Detroit to them and whatever mud that is splashed from the City of Detroit lands on all of us in their eyes. Detroit to them also means automobile manufacturing and it is that plight and near demise that is at the source of much of the current media focus. It is like the outbreak of a once contained disease and now they think they might catch it. Some of them are, particularly print journalists. I would hope our Time travelers would latch onto the issue and damage created by those divisions.

The way out for Detroit [all Detroit] is most difficult - by coming together in metropolitan union and sharing the costs and burdens that disproportionately fall on the impoverished older cities. This can be done by making living in Detroit as appealing as living in any other metropolitan community. It means leveling insurance rates and taxes and taking on a concerted attack on crime and its evil twin poverty.

The Katrina / New Orleans analogy is incorrect. Afghanistan is a closer analogy. Terrorists must be suppressed and infrastructure, schools, and public safety must be rebuilt under a unified government. Sadly this could be done with just a fraction of the money and commitment that has been given to either Iraq or Afghanistan.

[PCE]

My grandfather, who has been gone for almost 30 years now, used to say to me:

The best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago. The next best time is today, so what are you going to do.......

Food for thought.

[Stosh]

I'll be quite honest, I can see that the both of you RealityCheck and Lonyo Exit, need to take a break. I'm amazed that the both of you haven't been banned yet, but that's a subjective call.

[RealityCheck]

Good observations, Lowell and PCE. Thought-provoking and well-expressed.

"Our Time travelers" is especially savory, as is this elegance:

". . . like chipmunks frolicking in the lush foliage high in the tree, unconcerned that the tree is hollow and rotting at its base and its fall will also be theirs.

And of course, grandparents' wisdom is always to be cherished. Thanks for those nourishing words for your grandfather, PCE.

[Lonyo exit]

'll be quite honest, I can see that the both of you RealityCheck and Lonyo Exit, need to take a break. I'm amazed that the both of you haven't been banned yet, but that's a subjective call.

Banned for what? We're not using obscenity or libeling anyone. It's called a disagreement, powderpuff. Such arguments are the meat of forums like these.

Reality Check, you have completely turned me around. Now I realize that:

1.) Time's journalists will uncover things unfound in decades of journalism here
2.) We will be held up as a model for the rest of the country
3.) You are not at all a deranged oddball
4.) Your habit of bolding is contagious

[ziggyselbin]

To those of you complaining,give me a break. Tine will spend a year in Detroit and report their findings accordingly.That some of you disagree is just your opinion.

I think it is good that Time recognizes Detroit is an iconic and historically very important city. Now many others in the country will read about Detroit and hopefully learn something.

The idea that money is going to somehow solve Detroit's problems is callow.That will only anger people. Lots of money has found its way to Detroit. Unfortunately it was squandered and very little good came of it.

I welcome this exposure of the city.

[PCE]

Thank you for the kind words Realitycheck. I realize that Detroit has serious issues and problems to overcome. Damned serious. I'm certainly not trying to blow sunshine up anybodies fanny here.
I've come to realize how special Detroit is. Not just for the architecture, or the history, or the recreational opportunities or the coneys at Lafayette. The very special, and in my opinion, the unique thing is the people. The work ethic, intelligence,and certainly the caring and compassionate nature of it's people are found nowhere else. At least not in my travels.
Where else can you sit next to a total stranger at a bar, start talking baseball, and in 5 minutes you have a new best friend.

[Stosh]

Banned for what? We're not using obscenity or libeling anyone. It's called a disagreement, powderpuff. Such arguments are the meat of forums like these.

Reality Check, you have completely turned me around. Now I realize that:

1.) Time's journalists will uncover things unfound in decades of journalism here
2.) We will be held up as a model for the rest of the country
3.) You are not at all a deranged oddball
4.) Your habit of bolding is contagious

Crosspost to "Why I seldom come around here"... Sheesh. Powderpuff indeed.

[BShea]

I'll be curious to see how long they keep this up. I imagine what we've seen this week is the Big Intro, and then the coverage by the Time Inc. properties will level out. Is there enough interest nationally? Will they have something Detroit every week inside their mags? Or will this peter out? After the big splash this week, and buying the house, I doubt they'll lose interest, but will their readers get tired of it? You can rubberneck only for so long, and then all the stories start to sound the same ... even the positive turnaround pieces. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it was fashionable to do Cleveland turnaround pieces.

And we should all keep in mind that these stories are meant for everyone else not us. We're the animals in the cages, Time is the zookeeper and the rest of America is the peering crowd ...

[RealityCheck]

Good post last night [[10:49), Lonyo. Starts my day with a smile -- a sincerely earned one.

I agree that exchanging viewpoints -- even [[especially?) with playful snark -- is healthy, cathartic and possibly of value [[... entertainment value, at least). No harm, no foul, no bruises and certainly nothing ban-worthy.

Feeling a bit less deranged today, though no less of an oddball.

Do let us know if italics and parenthetical asides are contagious as well. CDC reportedly is working on a vaccine for this Style Flu I came down with, also called B1I1 [[Bold One, Italic One).

[EastSider]

First, it was someone in the Kilpatrick administration that gave the text message to a LOCAL reporter. Second, Time is quite clear that it is not here to dig into corruption of city government, which is best done with people who have cultivated connections, such as the local media. National media generally don't dive into a city's corruption, especially when their ticket to leave town has already been stamped with a date a year from now.

What they plan to do is spelled out on Time's Assignment Detroit web page:

Again, it's quite clear we are being studied as the example of how bad things can be if you really fuck up. We are being shown as such to the rest of the country.

Though it's subtle and subconscious, note the language in the last sentence - Detroit is "it" but the rest of the country is "our" as in "we." Detroit is the Other. This is the premise of the coverage and what will drive it.

Regardless of what they "plan" to write about, if a compelling network of political machinery is exposed while they're here, they'll take the bait. Public corruption is one of the bits that got us where we are today, and Detroit certainly isn't the only place with crooked politicians.

Perhaps Time could frame it as "What happens when public corruption isn't dealt with."