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

[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."

[RealityCheck]

No links, no unwisecracks, no bolding . . . just portions of two comments today on Dawsey's blog. Neither is from me.

Detroit's labor legacy and history are much more complicated. Someone over there at Time should look up an important man named General Baker who is still active today.

I'll end with a suggestion that everyone who stays at the Time House in Detroit be advised to read Thomas Sugrue's "Origins of the Urban Crisis" for the much longer story touched upon here in this blog post. Another book on Detroit's political and labor scene in the early 1970s by Heather Thompson, "Whose Detroit: Politics, Labor and Race in a Modern American City" should also be required.

Glad Time is in my city; and I look forward to helping their writers understand the more nuanced and complicated history of this great city. I'm sure many others around here will join in too.
-- Reegman

I'm thrilled that Time has committed itself to covering the city in depth, but I think that pledge comes with a responsibility to do the story right. Too many media outlets have swooped in and out, only to repeat the same misconceptions [[i.e., the riot caused white flight, when in fact it began fifteen years before) and shake their head at the city's decline.

So I'm heartened to see you [Dawsey] approach the city's history with respect and care.
-- thinkDetroit [[blogger Cooper)

[PCE]

Good stuff Realitycheck. Thanks for sharing.

[PCE]

Grey and Okrent interviewed on NPR

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/09/25/07

[RealityCheck]

Returning just to wrap up the week with a portion of another voice on this topic. [[If you've seen enough look-backs at the 1950s/1960s, bail now.)

Dawsey's cover article 'counterpoint,' posted Sept. 24 on his Time blog, drew 13 comments by Sat. eve. The latest one from 'yellowandred' is poignant and optimistic. Excerpt:

I'm a lifelong Detroiter,dating back to 1941. I have seen the city change in many ways -- some good and some not so. Growing up on the westside of Detroit, where many black professionals were educated and moved on to great careers, forms the foundation of my present day thoughts about about this city of ours.

. . . While it is true that the city experienced significant population declines in the late 1950s due to industrial shrinkage, those declines paled in the face of what happened as a result of open housing and the elections of Black representatives. The clarion call of "The Last One Out Of Detroit, Please Turn Out The Lights" further galvanized the exodus from the city by feeding our historic racial divisions, as well as a quest for new and obstensibly better surroundings in the suburbs.

. . . Incidentially, I too could have headed north across Eight Mile years ago, but for my hope that the region would embace a more comprehensive spirit of compassion and cooperation. I am still here and hopeful.

[Kathleen]

Question about the Time cover photo for The Tragedy of Detroit piece...

Where was the photo taken? or is it a composite? Some of the buildings look very familiar but I can't pick out a single location from it.

Here's a link to the Time cover image: http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16...091005,00.html

[Tig3rzhark]

By just looking at the photo, it looks like the old Packard Plant.

But don't quote me on that.

[Kathleen]

Thanks, Tig3rzhark. I think you might be right. Like I said, it's a familiar site, but in looking at the photo again, it would be a view of the Packard Plant that I've not explored.

[Todd_Scott]

I believe it's a shot looking north from the walkway over Bellevue.
Bird's eye view

[vetalalumni]

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.

At the outset, Okrent admits his purpose [[see underlined portion of quote) is fundamentally not an exercise in flattery.

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.

Unmistakably, Time is in the unromantic business of making money first. Also, as pointed out in your post # 31, John Huey, Steven Gray, and even Darrell Dawsey have goals [[obviously). Huey appropriately has a somewhat "above the fray" posture from his perch. Gray looks for next steps forward [["rebound"). Gray also reports which current participants are staged to be most efficacious to that defined end. Relatively less embedded in traditional media, Dawsey can "break" some rules.

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?

Insightful Lonyo exit. I like your tough love angle.

... Lets teach the folks at Time. Explain ... 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

Be careful not to create news [["Lets teach the folks at Time"). Explain reality, yes. However, let "news" follow reality, not vice versa. So yes, maybe an opportunity. However, the media is not a solution in and of itself.

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

Exactly!

[maxx]

As the Time reporter who is living in Detroit says this first article is just the overall picture, and it seems to cover the reason for Detroit's decline well. Perhaps in future articles Time will mention the problem of third world competition which threatens all our cities and working people.

I agree that Detroit needs to consolidate the residential parts and allow alternative uses for the open land. I don't like the idea of pursueing the hydrogen car. It takes a lot of energy to produce hydrogen and I'd prefer to see that energy put into compressing air for air cars.

[maxx]

If you're going to point to the Cobo regional deal, you'll have to bring up all the stupidity from the City Council that preceded it and nearly did in Cobo in the name of local control. In recent years, Detroit's government has looked like "Idiocracy" here and now.

[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!