Over the weekend, Michael and I went to IFC to see "Detropia," Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's bleak documentary about the downfall of the Motor City. You probably don't have to be a native to notice there isn't much new information revealed here -- Detroit hasn't "been the same" since the riots that began two weeks after I was born, and its demise has been well-chronicled ever since.
But what the filmmakers do argue rather successfully through interviews with people and officials on the ground is that what has been happening in Detroit is slowly beginning to happen throughout the country, as a result of the collapse of the U.S. manufacturing base, with jobs being shipped out of the country and unions neutered. I wasn't blown away by "Detropia." But the faces it put on one of the saddest stories in the history of urban life in America will touch you deeply, even if no one seems to be offering even the smallest solution for how to change things.
But what the filmmakers do argue rather successfully through interviews with people and officials on the ground is that what has been happening in Detroit is slowly beginning to happen throughout the country, as a result of the collapse of the U.S. manufacturing base, with jobs being shipped out of the country and unions neutered. I wasn't blown away by "Detropia." But the faces it put on one of the saddest stories in the history of urban life in America will touch you deeply, even if no one seems to be offering even the smallest solution for how to change things.
2 comments:
As a Michigander (Yes, I am ; )...
Everything that is wrong with Detroit, is wrong with America...a microcosm.
I have friends who live there and I visit, it has so much potential...yet there are so many ongoing challenges that aren't being tackled by the powers that be...a quagmire.
Sad, sad, sad...
I visit my brother there once a year and it gets worse with every visit. Imagine: no rush hour downtown; no first-run movie theaters; no major chain grocery stores. It is not a city; rather, a war zone. There is no more proverbial "8 Mile Rd." The suburbs, which now extend out to 38 Mile Rd., are filled with bitter white people who flee from the bitter black people, who are fleeing from Detroit. It's not pretty. I see no hope for the city. This, from an ex-Detroiter.
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