I was going to write about hopelessness in Detroit.
After 23 days of unified hope throughout the U.S. we hit a city that looks like this. Houses in total decay, factory after factory left empty, entire neighborhoods silent. I had images of Hazmat suits walking down the main streets after deadly virus had run its course, scenes from zombie films and that old "Twilight Zone" episode where the soldier walks into a completely desolate town and everywhere he goes it looks like someone just left. Post-industrial wasteland is the perfect setting for a film.
It was hard to see, really. Detroit, birthplace of modern America, icon of car culture and industrialization...so quiet. Wiped out by corporate greed and economic recession, a city supported by a single industry can't stand when the industry collapses. The economy in the area crumbled to the point that people were forced to just walk away from their homes because it would them more to try and sell it.
The result is a city that isn't likely to come back. Gentrification isn't going to take place the way it has in Chicago, New York, and Nashville. A small group of artists and investors aren't going to fix up on neighborhood to its full bourgeoisie potential. There's not a strong enough economy to support it. Unless the American car industry has a huge resurgence, or multiple industries invest in the people of Detroit, the current trend of urban decay will probably continue. And it's hard to find hope in that.;.
That feeling came to a head for me when we visited The Heidelberg Project, a community arts project using objects found within the abandoned homes in the area. Tyree Guyton started the project with his grandfather and former wife in the 1980's and the project has grown to encompass a city block with found art sculptures, social commentary pieces, and powerful testaments to the racial and economic issues in Detroit's neighborhoods. As beautiful as it was to see a sign of life, the sign felt so small after driving through the city, and so sad after seeing entire houses covered with the stuffed animals children were forced to leave behind when their families moved to new jobs in other cities.
So I was going to write about the great irony of Detroit, iconic and essential to the modern American spirit, being the only place along our path thus far that has been without hope. But it isn't true. We saw hope at the Henry Ford Museum in Deerborn, MI (HUGE recommendation by the way. Easily one of the best museums I've ever been to.) A museum all of us had written off as just a car place, a testament to American capitalism turned out to be a refreshingly accurate look at American history and daily life. All because of people like Greg, our tour guide for the day and PR rep for the museum, who grew up in Detroit, going to the musuem and came back to work for it when he graduated from college. He has such a passion for his museum and his hometown and that he doesn't want to leave.
We saw it in Hamtramck, where the kindness of friends and family still holds strong, as we were treated to an enormous Polish/Ukranian meal made with care by a slew of workers. The traditions, the history, and the passion behind the food they gave us was much appreciated and well recieved, if the food coma we all found ourselves in afterward is any indication.
We saw it in Rossford, where Ken showed us his old neighborhood where everyone still walks together down to the park to watch baseball games and the kids all stop and wave when you drive past. And we saw it in Toledo, where the arts are loved and respected, and thriving to replace the failing industrial economy with a creative economy, and it's working wonders. All thanks to people like Mark Folk, who works with local artists and at risk kids to build the programs necessary to sustain a creative economy.
It's beautiful and powerful to see that happening, and I have to admit, it's hopeful. In an area struggling to make it into a new era, they are finding their way. And as Emma told me, there is something uniquely American about hope and ingenuity combined. Even to be able to pack up and move elsewhere and succeed in a new town or new career is an opportunity some never get.
So I can't write about the hopelessness of Detroit. It's going to a hard time, yes. It may never be the booming factory town it was, yes. But it will find its way. It just needs time.