Detroit - The Emotional Toll

I am not 100% sure as to why the city of Detroit has had such an emotoinal effect on me during this trip. I initially took this trip to see if what was read about and seen image-wise was true to its form. Was it that abandoned? Did it really contain the level of poverty that is constantly written about? Were there a ton of empty lots full of weeds? Was it a company town like what has been documented? Some answers I received thus far, some I have not. I am certainly convinced that this is a city made for 2 million people with a population of 850,000 or so. I am convinced certainly that there is a lot of land abandoned, full of weeds and blight and structures empty but still standing (some better than others, many boarded up and/or with broken windows). I can't say for sure that this is strictly a company/industry town, though if I had to put a wager on it in Vegas (or Detroit for that matter), I'd say that it very much is. Listening to the news today, reading the Detroit Free Press while eating a breakfast crepe snack, and exploring the GM Headquarters at the Detroit Renaissance Center overlooking the Detroit River into Canada, it became very apparent how engrained manufacturing - notably automotive - is in the fabric of Detroit and the greater Michigan. CEO Fritz Henderson spoke today after Barack Obama addressed the nation in regards to todays Chapter 11 bankruptcy announcement in New York. He talked about the new GM that will come about given the clean balance sheet GM will have if they are indeed able to rid themselves of both the level of debt owed to lenders and the legacy costs of paying pensions and health care benefits to those now retired workers. But in the process, they will close 12 plants, including one in Pontiac, Flint, Ypsilanti, and Lavonia. There will be an additional closing in Grand Rapids but the first four were the ones discussed in the most detail given the proximity to metro Detroit. A UAW labor rep in Ypsilanti talked about how this will devastate the community. Analysts and executives agree, however, that even though the decision was difficult it was something that had to be done. And my feeling has been the same since the government started lending GM money. It is a corporation that really has not competed from a cost perspective for decades and though the quality of vehicles has improved the last few years to levels on par with the Japanese, GM has a repuation that needs a huge facelift. All of this information came during my morning in downtown Detroit area and my drive to Flint, Michigan where I was going to the Alfred Sloan Museum to see the exhibits about Flint and the automotive history of the town.

Michael Moore turned me onto Flint like many others I am sure, putting a camera lense on a community that had been so ill affected by the plant closings GM instilled during the 1980s and early 1990s due to NAFTA and free trade notably with Mexico. Plants were being moved south of the border for cheaper wages and overall costs at the sacrifice of American communities like Flint. The museum told the story as to the great number of years in which Flint agreed, "What is good for GM is good for Flint." They built Buicks, Chevys, tanks during the second world war. It was a community that grew so fast in the 1920s and the 1940s that some migrants and immigrant labor had to sleep in makeshift tents because of a lack of housing. In 1960, Flint had a population of 196,000 while today that population is closer to 114,000. Driving through Flint initially, I was surprised to see the amount of activity in the civic center area when coming off of the freeway - good 'ol I-475. It was nothing special really in the sense of its beauty or outlandish desolation, but there were people roaming about with a purpose and though the area looked a bit tired the activity made the structures and landscape seem more lively. I took the wrong off-ramp, however, and headed toward the next exit which was the cultural center exit. My experience at the Alfred Sloan museum certainly tells the story of Flint like a brief summary of American history - industrial revolution with the automobile at the turn of the century, huge growth in the urban areas in the 20s, depression in the 30s, war industry in the 40s, consumerism and boom time in the 50s, de-industrialization, white flight, and sunbelt migration starting the 1960s along with new minorities moving in (in the case of Flint, Puerto Ricans in addition to the black population already there).

But after my museum trip I did two things - I went to a local diner to grab a sandwich and I drove around the area outside of the university and cultural and civic centers. Though the level of abandonment and decay was not on the levels like I saw in Detroit, it existed. Poor blacks sitting outside decayed and run-down homes, roof and pillar structures tipping on their sides as if it they're going to collapse. And of course the weeds. The lunch spot I went to was another example of what I noticed in large sections of both Ohio and Michigan - an older population and a poor young population. The waitress was probably no older than me, working in this small, local cafe that probably hasn't had an update in 30 years. There were six other people besides me in the cafe and they were two older ladies and two older gentlemen - three of whom smoked - who were watching the television watching the day go by slowly, a middle-age gentleman in front of me a few booths, and myself. You walk outside and it was a gray day on this flat terrain of one-story buildings. Though time never stops, time has certainly slowed a great deal in Flint. I departed back to Detroit metro to meet Justin, to catch up on the day and discuss more tales of urban decay and how the California Bay Area is so different.