Detroit City Is the Place to Be (2012) By Mark Binelli

Being originally from Gary, Indiana, there is nothing I enjoy more than a story about Detroit, it’s always nice to see a city that has actually fallen further.  Yet, the story of Detroit is really nothing more than an extended version of what has befallen Gary.  It, perhaps, fell further merely because it was larger, a matter of scale.

The similarities far outweigh the differences.  I’m old enough to remember Gary as economically vibrant, gritty mind you, but vibrant.   One either worked at U.S. Steel -- "the big mill" -- or one of the numerous smaller mills or their hundreds of supporting industries.  You not only worked in the city, you shopped on Broadway, went to games & concerts at Memorial Auditorium, and movies at The Palace.  In my family these memories go even deeper, we were second generation; my mother was also born in Gary. 

Her memories are stronger, if more distant, harking back to somewhat of a rivalry with the bigger city.  They would argue World War II never could have been won without the tanks built in Detroit; while in Indiana we would point out those tanks would not have been built without the steel made in Gary.   They had Diana Ross and the UAW, we had Michael Jackson and the USW.  It was a different era to be sure.

The heartbreak is there, though it is New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen that captures it best with his music, the ballad My Hometown  in particular.  When I take the South Shore RR through (never to) Gary, or friends travel I-94 to Michigan (never to Detroit), it remains with you. It’s in our genetic make-up, the reason we always jump at the opportunity to see a rebirth that will, likely, never come.  Such were the thoughts when I picked up Detroit City Is the Place to Be by Mark Binelli, a native of the motor city.  Privately, deep down, we hope, against reality.

With a subtitle of The Afterlife of an American Metropolis, Binelli’s book promised something other than a recitation of ills.  But alas, it did not deliver.  At a precise 300 pages, it’s merely another assembly line rehash, chapters after chapter written for nothing more than their shock value.  I suppose that’s what sells, but I for one feel short-changed.  We don’t need another list, we are perfectly capable of writing one ourselves. 

Yet, buried within Mr. Binelli’s docudrama are snippets of answers to the “what’s next” question: urban pioneer stories that are far more interesting than the urban wasteland saga.  Sadly, one had to wade through yesterday’s news to find them.

Do I recommend this book?  Maybe, but please, check it out at the library, don’t buy it.  The profiteers have already picked Detroit clean.

FOLLOW-UP 6/19/2013:  Gary, Indiana