Back in the ol’ hometown, ctd

Detroit has been setting records for murder and overall decrepitude for so long that it can be hard to remember that, decades ago, it was actually a habitable and (mostly) safe place. There was a highly regarded art museum; a zoo that was famous all over the world for its progressive animal habitat designs; a sophisticated, extensive, and heavily-used public library. The high school I attended was analogous to the famous Boston Latin School and regularly visited by world-famous scientists and politicians; graduates, basically, had completed their first year of college. There was a lively underground music and arts culture. There were many spacious public parks, and they were both safe and well maintained.

Dawn and I visited Detroit in the summer of the year we got married, and drove down Grand River avenue from Telegraph Rd. on the city’s western edge to downtown, near the river. There was nothing to see but mile after mile of boarded-up storefronts — the route I rode every day for years, on a city bus, when I went to high school in downtown — and the future I had seen coming. I have never understood why anybody stayed.

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