Two Tough Cities: Detroit and New Orleans
Monday, July 22, 2013 at 2:01PM Today on our summer road trip we stop by two tough cities, Detroit and New Orleans. You’d think most folks would be speeding away from these two hotspots of disaster, but tourism is up in both cities, as are many bright young entrepreneurs who call these “frontier cities”…
Detroit was in the news this week, the largest US city to declare bankruptcy, $19 billion in debt. The Motor City was once the 4th biggest city in the nation, 2 million residents, the icon of American industrial might. Now it’s 700,000 folks, can’t fund its public employee pensions. Only 40% of its street lights work. It takes an hour for police to respond.
What happens to a big city when disaster strikes? Who stays, who leaves? How do they rebuild? Who else cares?
I remember right after 9/11 Mayor Guiliani encouraged, begged people to visit New York. “We’re here, the theaters and museums and restaurants are open, come spend money.” My husband and I answered the call, had a fantastic, moving time. Locals talked with us in new personal and vulnerable ways.
Dear New Orleans
Dear New OrleansAfter Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans our nation turned its lonely eyes to the Big Easy. The city was literally underwater. In the next few years 25% of its population moved away. But then a remarkable influx of college educated young entrepreneurs came back to town: the brain drain became a brain gain. “Dear New Orleans” captured on people’s hands thousands of messages of hope and creativity. Brad Pitt raised $30 million for creative new homes in the Ninth Ward. I can name 100 people I know from California alone who went there on church mission trips to rebuild homes, and who came home transformed.
Who will visit Detroit? Does America care, as they did about NYC and New Orleans?
Dear New OrleansActually, 19 million tourists already visit the Detroit area every year. That’s more than twice the number of visitors to New Orleans. That statistic surprised me. Who would want to visit a bombed out, dangerous, racially tense, non-functioning city? Oh, people who like great amusement parks (some of the best in the country), who like to gamble (the city has put a lot of money into hotel casinos), who like car shows (the International Auto Show,) who like the city’s four professional sports teams (only 12 US cities have 4 professional teams), who like the art and culture and fun a city can offer.
Even financially struggling cities don’t roll over and die. It’s hard to kill a city. And Americans do like to party.
In the recent book For the Love of Cities, author Peter Kageyama compares Detroit and New Orleans, calling them “two tough cities.” In the past decade they’ve both suffered a devastating crisis, lost 25% of their populations, had to do the city equivalent of the First Step of Alcoholics Anonymous: admit publicly they were powerless, their cities were unmanageable, they needed help.
Americans do feel bad for both cities. They rushed to help New Orleans. But it feels like we’re more embarrassed by Detroit. Maybe it’s easier to sympathize after a natural disaster than one that seems self inflicted, the result of mismanagement and denial about changing times. If my AA analogy has any truth to it, are we sending New Orleans to the emergency room, but Detroit to rehab?
Kageyama has some interesting things to say about both cities. I’ve never visited either, so I simply rely on his impressions. I like his general idea that cities need to be not just liveable, but loveable. Basic needs of safety and functionality are not enough. Loveable cities, he says, should also be comfortable, convivial, interesting and meaningful. He has some great stories about such cities.
ProsperUSHe is hopeful about Detroit and New Orleans because in both places their crises have created a sense of frontier - openness, possibility, craziness and chaos. Less of an entrenched ruling class of politicians or business. Some open land and less red tape. You can buy a house in Detroit for $100, or turned an abandoned house into an art project. He quotes one Detroit entrepreneur:
“This region, this city is not a place to come and be at ease,” says Eric Cedo. “It’s not a place to come and just be one of many to blend in….The people that do choose to stay, can make an immediate impact….You don’t go to New York feeling like, ‘I am going to leave my imprint on New York.’ I am not going to New York to make New York. I am going to New York to make me.
“In Detroit you feel differently. I go to Detroit because I want to have an impact on Detroit. I want to build. I want to create. I want to make something of the city. Not just make something of my life, but I want what I make of my life to be a part of something bigger than myself.”
Rebuilding DetroitHe’s a bit more hopeful about New Orleans than Detroit; their disaster was sudden and cleared out some old structures and leadership. Detroit’s pain (this was written a couple years ago) he calls a death of a thousand cuts. The public impression is, like mine above, of a wasteland with no jobs. Wrong, Kageyama says; there may be few manufacturing jobs, but lots of others. As the Financial Times wrote approvingly in this past week’s editorial, corporate headquarters are returning to Detroit, alongside lots of those entrepreneurs.
New Orleans is more welcoming of these “co-creators” as Kageyama calls them. He quotes Tom Piazza’s Why New Orleans Matters:
“New Orleans has, in fact, become a kind of frontier town, with all the opportunities (for good and bad), the unpredictability (good and bad), the violence, and the sense that one’s own actions might conceivably have an effect on one’s environment. Like any frontier, it attracts adventurers, profiteers, romantics, desperados, and those who want to remake themselves in some way, to rewrite the map of possibility. It has also been attracting a startling number of idealistic and touch people from around the country, mostly young, but not exclusively so, who see a chance to make a difference.”
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Last thought: I think it’s no accident that these reviving cities have amazing music; nothing says unique American more than New Orleans jazz and Detroit Motown. When we sing American, we sing “When the Saints Go Marching In” with a jazz brass band beat. We know “There Ain’t No Mountain High Enough to keep me from getting to you.”
Let’s hope these cities keep singing.
Copyright © 2013 Deborah Streeter
Reader Comments (1)
Deborah: I read this great article aloud to Chris, who was born in Detroit and lived in NOLA for years. Good, hopeful stuff you write. Thanks!