By any measure, Detroit is a disaster. Infant mortality rates, poverty, crime, and illiteracy have been among the highest in the nation for years, and despite the construction of dowtown casinos and the brick and glass islands of midtown lofts (mostly empty), there’s no hope of the city returning to what it was 50 years ago, when nearly 2 million people crowded its houses. Yet, the city’s reputation as dangerous and post-industrial attracts the attention of real and wannabe hipsters nationwide. Not long ago The New York Times touted Detroit as a must-see city. I’m hard pressed to imagine a visitor finding his way successfully from one end of town to the other without succumbing to depression or morbid fear. The trick for anyone who lives in this gray and rusting place is not to mind it, and in this way perhaps the city functions as a synecdoche for the larger life of America. We all know that we’re in deep trouble; how best to ignore this fact and focus instead on the paltry amusements that living in this country offers?
