Comments on: Let’s Not Bash Detroit (or Fetishize It, Either)

By: Jon H

Jon H — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 02:56:15 +0000

This column should be a must-read. As a circumspect and erudite reflection on the realities of motor city / rock city / ruins city – whatever you call it, I believe the place reflects a larger, national reality that could only be subsumed through “rust belt” reductionism. The only difference is that Detroit has not undergone the “creative destruction” to the same degree that New York or Boston, or even D.C. or San Francisco have with the Haussmanian perniciosness of so called “urban renewall” The real ruins reside in the ruinous canyons of CBDs, where any semblance of humanity all but abandons the city when the sun falls and the night takes over. Mr. Prelinger sees a humanity in Detroit that few others see, and I think we best look its way for positive ways of reimagining our urban futures… My two pence

By: Glen Helfand

Glen Helfand — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:02:42 +0000

Well put. I made my first visit to Detroit last fall, and was seduced by those various dreams of decimation and phoenix-like gentrification. But of course, a block by block artist-led revitalization is a huge pipe dream, as is the notion that city coffers can be meaningfully refilled through fees from movie studios looking for apocalyptic location shots that need no set dressing or the combined efforts of micro organic farms on the lots of burned down houses. Like Las Vegas, Detroit’s an urban environment with its soul and subtext on its sleeves– the rise and fall of American ideals in a deceptively neat package. It is, in a sense, easier to be lulled in a place like San Francisco, where they lines are less clearly drawn. Looking forward to the footage on Tuesday.