Buh Bye Motor City

 Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It’s the only way to live
In cars 
--Cars, Gary Numan

 I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
Now, I never considered myself a thief
GM wouldn’t miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years 
 --One Piece at a Time, Johnny Cash

 This place is cruel, no where could be much colder
If we don't change, the world will soon be over
Living just enough, stop giving just enough for the city 
--Living for the City, Stevie Wonder  

_________________

Detroit is dying, yet the news is more content with celebrity or the foreign hordes ... Egypt, Syria, whatever. (Hey -- do you know the meaning beyond Bey's "fierce new do"? The Guardian says "it might be the biggest news of all time." Be there, or be square.)

How did the fourth largest industrial city in America turn into a travesty of the American Dream? A city that helped the Allies win a world war through its prodigious munitions output? Where would the U.S. turn now for this industrial output? Certainly not Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, Youngstown, Pittsburg, or any of the other former Steel and industrial centers.

The city's grim stats paint a desolate picture: Unemplyment: 15.5%; 1/3 of citizens live in poverty; 82.7% of population is black. 20,000 stray dogs roam the streets (like in Chernobyl). Urban planners suggest corraling the population so as to reduce infrastructure expenses (like COIN's "strategic hamlet"program for third world nations.)

Detroit is being urged to sell its prestigious 60,000-piece art collection -- why not? What need do such people have of things of beauty and value? Such things are the provenance of the wealthy and the winners. Just as the poorer schools lose their art and music programs first, so it goes with losers everywhere.

What does it matter to inner city Detroit that trillions of U.S. tax dollars fly overseas, or that Afghanistan or Iraq are still not viable states? We can bail out banks and auto companies, but how to bail out a city with no tax base or hope for a productive future? How is it that Ford and General Motors have survived, yet the city that spawned them hears its death knell? (I recently saw a KIA with government tags -- what gives?)

In "Crumbling American Dreams", author Putnam suggests the breakdown's roots lie in our loss of identity, both personal and national:

The crumbling of the American dream is a purple problem, obscured by solely red or solely blue lenses. Its economic and cultural roots are entangled, a mixture of government, private sector, community and personal failings. But the deepest root is our radically shriveled sense of “we.”

Epitaph for Detroit: Thy name is globalization. In a cruel twist, BMW, Mercedes, Kia, Hyundai, Toyota and Honda are all setting up factories in the United States -- but not in Detroit. The non-union South is a far more hospitable climate for the profiteering corporation.

You served your purpose, Detroit. No more unions; middle class on the descent -- there is no one left to occupy you.

R.I.P Detroit ... you were a contender.