I used to live there, 16-years worth ... have a good many friends there ... always said, "Our reputation is worse than the reality," but the nation seemingly has singled out Detroit, like a dysfunctional family settles on one of its own, to bear the burden of family shame and failure.
Problems?
You bet, but here's a small piece of what Mitch Albom recently wrote ...
Enough. We're not gum on the bottom of America's shoe. We're not grime to be wiped off with a towel. Detroit and Michigan are part of the backbone of this country, the manufacturing spine, the heart of the middle class -- heck, we invented the middle class, we invented the idea that a factory worker can put in 40 hours a week and actually buy a house and send a kid to college. What? You have a problem with that? You think only lawyers and hedge-fund kings deserve to live decently?
Click HERE for the rest of this fine article?
Thanks for your comments, Tom. I too lived in Detroit, well worked in Detroit and lived in Warren, MI, just to the north. Detroit does get a bad rap. Someone once questioned how I could live/work in such a violence filled city and I replied that I had never seen a gun. That person was surprised.
ReplyDeleteActually, something this is interesting, the only time I have seen a gun used in an act of violence was in Tokyo, Japan, which has very strict gun control laws.
Detroit has its challenges as does the auto industry (in which I worked for 20 years), but both are getting undeserved criticism.
Thanks for the link to the Albom article. One of the good things about living in Detroit was getting to regularly read his work.
ReplyDeletePoor Detroit, so many good things, so many good people, so many people working hard to make it a better place and yet it just can't seem to turn the corner.
by the way, there's a typo at the start of your piece, "16 years wroth".