dykstraNet

I was on the phone with many friends last week back in Detroit in advance of Superbowl XL. Everyone was on and on about how Detroit’s hosting of the big game was showing off a watershed moment in Detroit history.

Photo found on flickr.com posted by umyeah.

Things have been tough since the riots of 1968, but it’s time for Detroit to eschew its bad image. I’d like to believe that this is true. Detroit it seems is always getting such bad press. But for the first time in recent memory, I was hearing good things. Here is a snippet from the Boston Globe:

DETROIT — I come to you in praise of Detroit. That’s right. I like Detroit. In fact, I love Detroit. I could live here. Really.

It’s fashionable for out-of-town sports columnists to invade a Super Bowl host city and trash the place. If memory serves correct, I may have been guilty of this once or twice in the past (Houston, we had a problem. Yo, Jacksonville — have you Big Gulp yahoos built a three-story hotel yet?). But not this time. Who needs Miami, Tempe, or Southern California? We have Super Bowl XL right here in the heart of the Motor City.

However, whatever cosmetic changes the city has been able to pull off, it appears that the real problems run deep.

George Will’s townhall.com column talks about Detroit’s fundamental problems in the context of the upcoming gubernatorial race. Among the things he mentions is that, according Northamerican Van Lines, the outflux of people from Michigan is at its highest level since 1982 (when unemployement was 16%).

Photo found on Flickr posted by archiscot

There is a historical analysis of Detroit’s problems here.

Detroit. It is a good place to be from.

UPDATE: My comment-shy Detroit friends have put me in my place via voicemail regarding the smug “It is a good place to be from” line. Actually, I’ve toyed with moving back from time to time and I wish Detroit would rebound in order to make that easier. A little house in Royal Oak. A cabin in Northern Michigan. A boat on Lake St. Clair. BBQ’s and baseball games with good friends and family. Life could be pretty good in Michigan after all.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2006 at 8:47 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.