Drop a line if you’ve been:
‘There is a celebration of Detroit’s vernacular, whether it is in the Ford upholstery samples, posters for classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art in nearby Bloomfield Hills, a Shinola bicycle, or several examples of decorative arts and design from masters like Harry Bertoia and Eero Saarinen.’
A city may well contain more than the sum of its parts, but a lot of the talk about Detroit is about what it once was.
What can we learn from what’s happened within Detroit City Limits so that other American cities in slow decline, with lost manufacturing and industry, burdened with pension obligations and dwindling tax bases and revenue streams…can rebound?
How can the American economy grow anew, thrive locally and compete globally?
What trends in our culture and political economy make that less likely to happen?
Also On This Site: The Masonic Temple Of Detroit. (via David Thompson) From Buzzfeed: ‘Why I Bought A House in Detroit For $500:’How did Detroit get here? Very comprehensive and easy to navigate. More from Megan McArdle on the behavior that comes with pension bonuses.Charlie LeDuff, Detroit’s populist, citizen journalist’s youtube channel here. At least he’s sticking around.
Are you looking at beautiful photos and feeling sorry for Detroit, and yourself? See Time Magazine’s photo essay by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre (less porn-like, more thoughtful). Hipster hope, artists, collectivists and small business types can’t save it either: A Short Culture Wars Essay-Two Links On Detroit & ‘Ruin Porn’
GM is not a municipality, but good money got put in, probably after bad and it reeks of politics: From The Detroit News: ‘How The Treasury, GM Stock Deal Got Done’
A garage sale for the city’s art? Virginia Postrel At Bloomberg: ‘Detroit’s Van Gogh Would Be Better Off in L.A.’…From The Detroit Free Press: ‘DIA’s Art Collection Could Face Sell-Off To Satisfy Detroit’s Creditors’
Walter Russell Mead takes a look at the blue model (the old progressive model) from the ground up in NYC to argue that it’s simply not working. Check out his series at The American Interest
From Bloomberg: ‘Detroit Recovery Plan Threatens Muni-Market Underpinnings’