Detroit was my first taste of Americana, though I’ve never been there. For reasons I can only guess at, Saskatchewan received the 3 major US network feeds from Detroit. Why not Spokane (which Calgary gets), Minneapolis or Chicago (both closer)? Good question. But all Saskies know obscure Detroit suburb names like Lansing, Pontiac, and Auburn Hills.
As Saskatchewan doesn’t believe in Daylight Savings Time anymore (We were sick of being split down the middle, half with Alberta, half with Manitoba. Seriously. Nice try, William Willett.), eastern time zone tv shows were on 2 hours earlier in the winter. That meant that prime time started at 6pm, and Letterman was on at 9:30. It also meant that the 11:00 news was on at 9pm, early enough for young Fullertons to catch it before bedtime.
You now what was on Detroit’s late news in the late ’80’s? Death and destruction. It was not a happy time in the Motor City. Things like Devil’s Night (arsonists rampage the day before hallowe’en) and crack cocaine hysteria were reaching their peak. There were some positives: the Pistons were winning world championships, I became a lifelong Red Wings fan, and I acquired a taste for motown music. But what a picture of America to portray to impressionable prairie youth.
Detroit’s hayday is long past. The entire US Midwest has seen economic decline, as industry and investment move away from Chicago, Detroit (the Rust Belt) and Cincinatti to Atlanta, Phoenix and Houston (the Sun Belt). But Detroit’s fall has been particularly bad. Reasons for it include the flight to the suburbs, the decline of the american automotive industry, and racial tensions that resulted in de facto segregated neighborhoods (source).
Detroit is known for cars, of course. The rise of the Japanese automakers was very painful for the Big Three. Two movies come to mind: Gung Ho … One of many 80’s films that portrayed Japanese manufacturing culture. They were the threat back then. In my current career, Japanese Quality is the model of excellence, and all successful manufacturing operations have borrowed from their philosophies. The other is Roger and Me, Michael Moore’s first film about the decline of his home town Flint, Michigan, a victim of the automotive industry’s crash, and the people affected by heartless CEO’s.
The most fascinating thing for me about modern Detroit is the flight from the core. Detroit’s population has fallen from a peak of 1.8 million in the 50’s to under a million today. Affluent citizens have fled the core to those suburbs of Lansing, Pontiac and Auburn Hills, decimating Detoit’s tax base. Thousands of buildings lay vacant, and the city cannot afford to demolish them. They become havens for drugs and crime, helping Detroit become one of America’s most dangerous cities.
Things are so bad that there are serious proposals to raze entire blocks and let them go back to nature. Imagine farmland and wildlife inside a US beltway …
Finally, this abandonment has lead to a new pastime: urban exploration. There are fabulous skyscrapers in Detroit that have sat abandoned for years. People explore these buildings as they would a cave full of stalactites and stalagmites. Check out detroitblog.org for some fascinating photos of some beautiful abandoned buildings and insight into Detroit’s decline from a Detroiter.
