DETROIT — I came to Detroit expecting a wasteland. Instead, I met a bunch of nice people and ate hot dogs.
Detroit declared bankruptcy this month, taking the dubious honor of becoming the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. The city is $18 billion in the hole.
News stories described an empty town, teetering on the edge of anarchy. A place where most of the good things are gone, and what’s left is about to be auctioned off. A place where the last person out won’t have to worry about turning off the lights, because the lights haven’t worked in years.
Yet everywhere I went I encountered people with unflappable civic pride, people starting businesses and saying in the face of everything that Detroit was worth saving and will be saved.
“Detroit’s not dead,” a heavily tattooed 24-year-old woman told me over beers in a downtown bar. “It’s just riding the struggle bus.”
Tuesday
I went out for lunch Tuesday afternoon with a friend in Corktown. One of Detroit’s oldest neighborhoods, Corktown is also one of its recent success stories. The main drag along Michigan Avenue is lined with hip restaurants, bars, and coffee shops painted in bright colors.
The scene would not have looked out of place in Brooklyn. Behind us, though, loomed the abandoned, 18-story-tall hulk of Michigan Central Station. Estimates of the cost to restore the station run as high as $300 million. The Atlantic recently called it “the face of American ruin porn.” Whatever floats your boat.
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