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Caring enough to show the real Detroit

As much of the Detroit auto industry has collapsed and been taken over by the government, national media outlets covering the business and politics of the story have also tried to show how this crisis is affecting the city.

Most have focused on how bad things are in Detroit, showboating pictures of abandoned buildings and shuttered factories and generally acting like it is their first time away from gilded Manhattan (do they realize that parts of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens look just like parts of Detroit?).

Detroit is in rotten shape in some ways, but there is still good here, even in neighborhoods that appear beyond hope (as readers of this blog well know), and while it's good that people are trying to humanize the city, much of this coverage does as much harm by not giving the complete picture as it does good by focusing on the city.

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You want some blow?

A couple of 12-year-olds offered to sell me cocaine a couple of weeks ago while Val and I were in Washington D.C., and I am having trouble getting it out of my head.

The National Arboretum

Val and I had been to the National Arboretum, on the east side of D.C., just south of New York Ave., and we got a little lost on our way back to our U Street lodgings. We wound our way through some neighborhoods that reminded me a lot of Detroit's. Old houses, not bad, kept as well as they could be, but in need of some work. A beautiful cemetery named Mt. Olivet. Industrial buildings that were still in use, but looked like they could use some work, too.

After about 10 minutes of driving around, we finally righted ourselves and pulled up to two kids standing next to a stop light where we waited to turn and head back toward downtown.

"Hey!" one yelled. "Hey!" I didn't think they were talking to me, but I turned to look. "Hey! You want some blow?"

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