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wingblade DETROIT- A new documentary about Detroit will premiere tomorrow at the Un iversity of Michigan. The film traces the rise and ruin of the Motor Cit y Detroit Public Radio's Celeste Headlee reports: Detroit: Ruin of a City is not a slick, expensively produced documentary like Fahrenheit 9/11 or Super Size Me The film was made by two academic s Michael Chanan from the University of the West of England in Bristol a nd George Steinmetz of the University of Michigan. They used a handheld digital camera and lots of archival tape. Steinmetz says Detroit is fascinating on many different levels. He says i t's a legendary city because of the history of the auto industry and lab or relations. It's a mythic city for African-American culture and politics and it's a m ythic city for certain kinds of modernism in art - Diego Rivera's DIA mu rals are world-renowned. I've always loved this city, but I'm distressed by the abandonment. The filmmakers take French soc iologist Lo c Wacquant on a tour of the city, past the dilapidated but s till beautiful train station, the once fabulous Michigan theatre and the boarded windows and crumbling facades of many buildings on Woodward. Wa cquant is stunned to see Comerica Park on one side of the road and a vac ant building on the other. Why are you building new structures, spending millions of dollars buildin g new sports structures and entertainment centers, when you have the his toric heritage of the city's right here abandoned across the street. Wacquant is nearly speechless as he gazes at vacant houses with sagging p orches and trails of stained brick leading from the walls to the weed-ch oked lawns. If it was a city of one million white people, of course you wouldn't have this urban decay, of course there would have been renewal, of course th ere would have been government intervention to bring in market forces th at would benefit the city. But the story of Detroit is that it became a majority black city very quickly. The documentary includes several local residents, including artist Tyree Guyton, photographer Lowell Boileau and even a homeless man who's leavin g Detroit for Pontiac. Michael Chanan says he tried not to offer any ans wers or solutions in the film. I think documentary is a form that should be an investigative form, an op en form, a form that asks questions At the beginning of the film, there' re some shots of the United Artists building and there's some graffiti o n the windows and one of those graffiti is Question the media. George Steinmetz says there are many documentaries about Detroit, but ver y few that deal with the city's history. Detroit has been so systema tically misrepresented in the mass media and Hollywood films and in the nightly news commercial television news for such a long time.
View Replies To: wingblade The BS detector is off the scale! "If it was a city of one million white people, of course you wouldn't hav e this urban decay, of course there would have been renewal, of course t here would have been government intervention to bring in market forces t hat would benefit the city. But the story of Detroit is that it became a majority black city very quickly."
View Replies To: wingblade "Why are you building new structures, spending millions of dollars buildi ng new sports structures and entertainment centers, when you have the hi storic heritage of the city's right here abandoned across the street."
View Replies To: wingblade It's a shame, but that's the problem when a city relies on just one indus try or one advantage. Cities are like your investment portfolio, you nee d to diversify your holdings. It might not give you 300% yearly returns, but it will save you from losing your shirt.
View Replies To: wingblade "If it was a city of one million white people, of course you wouldn't hav e this urban decay, of course there would have been renewal, of course t here would have been government intervention to bring in market forces t hat would benefit the city. But the story of Detroit is that it became a majority black city very quickly."
View Replies To: wingblade At a bookstore recently I picked up and speed-read (didn't buy) parts of a book called "Collapse." It's by a California professor of geography de scribing the circumstances in which civilizations collapse. The last cha pter is about what is happening to his own Los Angeles.
View Replies To: 1rudeboy And it is absolutely striking when one crosses from Windsor, Ontario to D etroit - immediately the roadsides are totally littered with trash! As a US citizen, I feel a sense of shame every time I see the trashy roadw ays of Detroit. It's no wonder the Canadians think we are all ill-manner ed and wasteful.
View Replies To: HKTechBoy One of Detroit's problems is the rampant corruption in City Hall. They will not deal with that problem and until they do no one is going to move there.
View Replies To: wingblade Detroit simply moved 30 miles north. Cities moving "next door" happen ALL THE TIME through history. Black Nazis took control of the city government, white real estate agents wanted to make a quick buck by deliberately fomenting panic through "bl ockbusting", and the rest of "normal Detroit" lacked any moral leadershi p whatsoever from 1967-1985, resulting in a white flight stampede that N EVER NEEDED TO HAPPEN if they'd just stood their ground.
and if there aren' t any deadly toxins buried on same, Buffalo could revive. It is a disgusting place right now and sinking fast despite placing lipst ick on the sow's lips.
View Replies To: DUMBGRUNT I was curious about that statement too. Was the writer trying to say that whites wouldn't allow their city to deteriorate? Was he saying that whi tes care more about their communities than blacks? Was he saying that it was the fault of the whites, who, by their leaving, made Detroit fail?
and "self esteem" will NEVER come from a go vernment welfare check or a phony government job. The welfare program bastardization of the blacks in America was a big pla yer in this disaster... What left wing Democrats didn't destroy -- the u nions destroyed. Liberals have once again produced devastating unintended consequences wit h their "well meaning" liberal bullsquat theology... The DNC's attempt to secure the black plantation and the black vote -- ha s destroyed a large percentage of several generations of black families.
View Replies To: wingblade If it was a city of one million white people, of course you wouldn't have this urban decay, ... This is a Liberal put down of American Blacks if ever there was one. It s hows the true nature of Liberal thinking about blacks as a people.
View Replies To: MisterRepublican This implies that blacks are inept at running cities. Of course it's not about color but of political philosophy. If Blacks were predominantly Conservative, their leaders would be proudly pointing to monumental achievements rather than be constantly crying the racism excuse for their failures. The liberals' obscene political use of Blacks during the last half of the 20th century is racism on steroids.
View Replies To: HKTechBoy It's a shame, but that's the problem when a city relies on just one indus try or one advantage. Cities are like your investment portfolio, you nee d to diversify your holdings. There's lots of automotive industry jobs in the Detroit area -- out in th e suburbs. Go ten miles northeast of Detroit, to Grosse Point, MI and yo u will see lots of impressive multi-million dollar mansions Middle/upper class people simply don't like living next to drug dealers w ho might want to burn out the neighborhood if they get disrespected. Once Detroit reached the tipping point where the welfare class was the do minant voting bloc, the middle class moved out.
View Replies To: river rat I agree - unions and welfare played a big part. Recent Hispanic immigrants have done similar things in the sm all towns of Central California. One of the first things to raise its ug ly head is corruption in the local government. The immigrants say they want to live in a nice neighborhood, like ours, s o THEIR kids will have good schools and a safe place to play.
Be prepared to see somet...
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