Four generations of our family have lived or are living in the Detroit area - Griffins and Todds. This new book about Detroit captured my interest. Detroit: A Biography by Scott Martelle
(Chicago Review Press, April 2012)
"Many writers and artists have tried to capture Detroit, focusing on race, politics, Motown, the automotive industry or, increasingly, those stark pictures of stripped, burned-out buildings .... But Martelle succeeds with a different approach, treating the city biographically and seeking out its formative life events. It's an ambitious book, sure to intrigue and incense Metro Detroiters, who remain deeply divided on politics, industry and controversial figures from Henry Ford to five-term Mayor Coleman Young. Martelle measures Detroit through population shifts and job growth, as well as water-line usage, fire deaths, rat bites and the cost of housing. The author resists a one-horse explanation for how a city that reached 1.85 million people in 1950 dwindled to 714,000 by 2010. Strife over race and class might be the most consistent themes in the book, which chronicles a clash over escaped slaves in 1833 and builds to the 1967 riot that made national news. Detroit and Cleveland are very different cities. But readers here will see parallels, especially when it comes to the pain inflicted by a lack of regional planning, out-migration to the suburbs, veiled and blatant bigotry, loss of industry and the incentives race among local governments." Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 1, 2012
JHT - The author shows what happens when personal and corporate interests and politics drain the vitality and health of a city and region - and its people. How can those interests be used to build an area and a people? Where is the balance? Is this a cautionary tale for what is going on in the country?
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