For the first time in a long time, I hope the frequent and usually snarky comparisons of Memphis to Detroit are on target.
Detroit is on a roll in sports, business, and favorable national attention. I grew up in Michigan and still follow the Detroit newspapers and pro sports teams. The Lions are unbeaten, three years after going 0-16, and the Tigers are in the American League championship series. Ford and General Motors are making cars and money and restarting idled manufacturing plants. Detroit has a popular mayor, Dave Bing, who replaced a corrupt mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick. It has the legacy of Motown and, more recently, a proud and defiant voice in Eminem.
Detroit News columnist Daniel Howes has a nice column suggesting that the improvements are based on a solid foundation and might be lasting. It will never be the Midwestern industrial titan it was 50 years ago because it has lost more than half of its population. The car business has come South. But Detroit’s days as a national joke seem to be over, at least for a while.
