Motor City Revived as Detroit Withers to Motown Shadow
By Jeff Green and Keith Naughton - Mar 25, 2013
Sheila Cockrel remembers one early sign of Detroit’s decline: The retailer J.L. Hudson’s turned off the lights on floor after empty floor as shoppers abandoned the world’s tallest department store for new suburban malls.
“That’s nobody’s fault, that’s what happens in culture,” said the former Detroit councilwoman who now teaches history at the city’s Wayne State University (26128MF). “You have these larger economic forces in play.”
Detroit so dominated U.S. car making in the 20th Century that the city’s name became synonymous with the U.S. auto industry, like Hollywood with movie making. Now one Detroit is rising from the ashes, while the other is crumbling to dust. The U.S. automakers are surging, while Detroit is in such distress that it’s being taken over by the state of Michigan today.
General Motors Co. (GM), Ford Motor Co. (F) and Chrysler Group LLC have seen rising revenue and profit in the wake of wrenching bankruptcies and restructurings, earning a combined $13.5 billion last year. Detroit is running a $375 million deficit, with 36 percent of its residents living in poverty and a murder rate at the highest level since the Reagan Administration.
“They’re linked in history and in name only,” said Scott Martelle, author of “Detroit: A Biography” and a former Detroit News reporter who now lives in Irvine, California. “There are, what, two car factories left in the city?”
Six Decades
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-25/motor-city-revived-as-detroit-withers-to-motown-shadow.html
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