Requiem for Detroit

If the people of New Orleans want to rebuild that city, they're free to do so. But I don't think a single additional federal dollar ought to be spent on anything other than assuring the Mississippi River remains navigable. There is simply no reason why a city of that size ought to exist in that location, and it makes no sense for the rest of us to continue propping it up.

As to why the public as a whole prefers saving N.O. to saving Detroit, it's probably because N.O. is perceived to have made a larger positive contribution to American culture. That, and so many more people have fond memories of a visit to N.O., either for Mardi Gras or a convention, or just a vacation.

New Orleans and Detroit is like comparing apples and oranges. New Orleans is being rebuilt because it was destroyed during an act of God (i.e. Hurricane Katrina). Detroit is going to hell because of its overeliance on three companies within one specific industry. It is a duty of the federal gov't to help people repair their lives after a disaster; it is not the federal gov't's job to help rescue towns from poor financial management and business development decisions. If that is the case, then many towns within the US should be lining up for a bailout from the federal gov't.

No, the comparison is not that different, Illinidiva. People who wish to save New Orleans generally argue that N.O. is so important culturally and otherwise to America that we can't let it waste away. More pragmatic voices argue (as you do) that the city is in a nearly impossible position geographically, and that had Katrina not happened, it was still an economic sinkhole, with high rates of crime, illiteracy, welfare dependency, corruption and all the same demons that haunt Detroit.

But there's nothing romantic at all about Detroit.

There are two points here:

1. Saving Detroit as a city
2. Saving Big 3.

The article is about the city. Even if the city does cease its existence, where will people go? They won't disappear. They will go to other places. I am sure that there are many more good people over there than bad people (like in any other place). They are probably too scared to speak up.

Regarding saving the Big 3. I have never had an American car. However, according to AP $1.6B went to bailed-out bank executives (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j4du5x_AukGeVZ5Rli1iFTG1jEWgD95749UG0).
How much did AIG get? $135B? With no questions asked or stings attached.

With all my dislike of Big 3 it would be highly unfair not give them the money. Superwise it.

By the way, Citibank should have died in 1990s.

We have an obligation to help people, not cities, places, or local government.

Rod: "But there's nothing romantic at all about Detroit."
????
I know you didn't really mean that? The same could be said about NO by people who have never been there either. As someone who was born/raised there, there is a certain level of romance and nostalgia about the city it once was and what it could be (under better management of course), but to say nothing at all is "romantic" is just plain ignorant on your part.

what's romantic about new orleans? the exchange of beads for flashing one's titties?

The Detroit area has been my adopted home since 1979.

I don't think Detroit even wants to be romanticized. Romanticism is for wusses. Detroit is and always has been a tough place to get along. It has been a place of faded glory since long before I moved here. It hasn't been as kind to historic architecture as other cities but some gems remain: Old Mariner's Church, the Penobscot Building, the Detroit Institute of Arts, mansions in the Boston-Edison neighborhood.

What cultural contributions has it made? What about the Motown sound? The Supremes and the Temptations. MC5, Bob Seger and Eminem? Love 'em or hate 'em, whatever. I don't think Detroit cares. It's like a zombie that doesn't even know it's dead.

And didn't realize so many people wish it would just go away.

Re: Detroit is going to hell because of its overeliance on three companies within one specific industry.

Detroit is not going to hell because of the recent contratemps of the auto industry, It's been going to hell for 40 years now. The city was disastrously misgoverned for over a generation, bringing about not just white flight, but middle class Black flight to the suburbs as well. Briefly in the 90s there may have been some hope, but then the city reelected yet another corruptm, foul-mouthed mayor and so here we are at the edge of maximum entropy.

Ah, no, people who have never been to nawlins don't think anything about it other than one more place to get drunk and see strange things and eat strange food. I have never once read, met, or spoke with anyone who romanticzes New Orleans, or any city for that matter. People don't seem to do that anymore Granted Detroit is no Paris of the midwest, but it does have its pride of place in american fabric. As others have pointed, out we have contributed much to american culture as well as the american manufacturing power we once had. Yes its hard to romanticize a city with such rough edges and blue collar mystique, but few if any other cities have a similar tale to tell. Is entertainment and pleasure the only thing that can make a city "romanticizeable"?

Thanks for rememebring the White Stripes (those who did). Jack is my younger brother and is proud to have come from there. He shared a poem which sort of romanticizes Detroit-at least the detroit we and many others remember:

'Courageous Dream's Concern,' by Jack White

I have driven slow,
three miles an hour or so,
through Highland Park, Heidelberg, and the
Cass Corridor.
I've hopped on the Michigan,
and transferred to the Woodward,
and heard the good word blaring from an
a.m. radio.
I love the worn-through tracks of trolley
trains breaking through their
concrete vaults,
As I ride the Fort Street or the Baker,
just making my way home.

I sneak through an iron gate, and fish
rock bass out of the strait,
watching the mail boat with
its tugboat gait,
hauling words I'll never know.
The water letter carrier,
bringing prose to lonely sailors,
treading the big lakes with their trailers,
floats in blue green chopping waters,
above long-lost sunken failures,
awaiting exhumation iron whalers,
holding gold we'll never know.

I've slid on Belle Isle,
and rowed inside of it for miles.
Seeing white deer running alongside
While I glide, in a canoe.
I've walked down Caniff holding a glass
Atlas root beer bottle in my hands
And I've entered closets of coney islands
early in the morning too.
I've taken malt from Stroh's and Sanders,
felt the black powder of abandoned
embers,
And smelled the sawdust from wood cut
to rehabilitate the fallen edifice.
I've walked to the rhythm of mariachis,
down junctions and back alleys,
Breathing fresh-baked fumes of culture
nurtured of the Latin and the
Middle East.
I've fallen down on public ice,
and skated in my own delight,
and slid again on metal crutches
into trafficked avenues.

Three motors moved us forward,
Leaving smaller engines to wither,
the aluminum, and torpedo,
Monuments to unclaimed dreaming.
Foundry's piston tempest captured,
Forward pushing workers raptured,
Frescoed families strife fractured,
Encased by factory's glass ceiling.

Detroit, you hold what one's been seeking,
Holding off the coward-armies weakling,
Always rising from the ashes
not returning to the earth.

I so love your heart that burns
That in your people's body yearns
To perpetuate,
and permeate,
the lonely dream that does encapsulate,
Your spirit, that God insulates,
With courageous dream's concern.

NO is in the sunbelt and you can imagine that if they could get the levees in order it would be a great city that a lot of people would be happy to move to. Detroit is in the rust belt and you can't imagine anything anyone can do that would make people stop fleeing it the same way they're fleeing its entire region.

You can't save something that doesn't want to be saved. Detroit and Michigan will probably have to sink even lower before they pull their heads out of their collective butt and elect honest and competent politicians.