What killed Detroit?The collapse of the automobile industry seems the obvious answer. But is it a sufficient answer? The departure of meatpacking did not kill Chicago. Pittsburgh has staggered forward from the demise of steelmaking. New York has lost one industry after another: shipping, garment-manufacture, printing, and how many more? ...... The second factor in Detroit’s decline is the city’s defiant rejection of education and the arts. Pittsburgh has Carnegie-Mellon. Cleveland has Case Western Reserve University. Chicago has the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and a campus of the University of Illinois. Detroit has… Wayne State.
Read the entire article. I didn't expect to see an AEI scholar preaching Jane Jacobs. But there it is. The story isn't just throwing dirt on all shrinking cities. Both Pittsburgh and Cleveland are, to some extent, celebrated as success stories. Doing so makes the invective against Detroit all the more damning.
If this was 1983, what would the author be writing about Pittsburgh? 1977 in Youngstown? Is there any difference between Detroit now and those two places at the nadir of their own economic collapse?
7 comments:
Wasn't Frum a GWB speech writer?
I didn't make the connection, but now that you mention it ...
I should be careful about making AEI assumptions. I have no idea what neocon urban policy would look like.
Indeed, Frum was the great mind who came up with the term "axis of hatred," before it was sexed up to be the "axis of evil."
I am taking his writings, as all AEI outpourings, with a bucket of salt.
I only brought it up because I don't believe Frum is really a researcher/scholar. He's more of a pundit.
Of course one should always be aware of biases in rhetoric. But that should apply equally to everyone. Too often studies that agree with what we already believe are gospel, while those on the other side are simply treated as propaganda. Better to look critically with an open mind.
AEI classifies Frum as a "scholar". That's good enough for me.
Is Frum's characterization of education in Detroit accurate? If it is, then it is a big difference from Pittsburgh in the early 80s - CMU was already a computer powerhouse at that time. Not that there has been a direct, straight line from there to here, but it certainly provided a spark of talent inflow and innovation, as well as at least one area where Pittsburgh could hang its hat on a completely different reputation than "former steel city."
I'm reluctant to tackle Frum's take on Detroit because I don't know the SE Michigan region all that well. I have read more than a few references to the unfortunate location of the innovation engine in Ann Arbor, as opposed to the City of Detroit.
My theory, as far as Pittsburgh is concerned, is the early investment in human capital. CMU was/is certainly a part of that foresight that is beginning to pay big dividends.
Post a Comment