20 July 2013

And Then There Was None

No money, that is...

That's the big news for the City of Detroit. I heard it's something like the largest municipal bankruptcy. I'm not sure what the bankruptcy requirements are, but apparently that's a benchmark Detroit was able to meet.

It's just sad, mostly. Things like this don't happen overnight. The parties who started the problems are long gone, and now Detroit is being distanced from its awesome history and left to just be satirical songs on the radio and the butt of prime-time jokes.

I used to love hearing my grandma talk about Detroit in its prime, before the riots and the growing reputation as the 'murder capital'. And even more fascinating, her stories of when it was still a community, but rapidly falling apart. She said it was similar to Chicago's neighborhoods, where everyone knew which corners were bars, but when you walked in, the bartender better recognize you, because they were armed in case you were there for the wrong reasons.

Now it feels like most of the world (or at least the suburbs I'm familiar with) are by the book. It's not as tight of a sense of community when everyone drives to wherever they want to be, and I (at least) spend much of my time at home, with my immediate family, but not in such substantial relationships with those around me.

1 comment:

siteseer said...

everything has changed so much... I personally wonder how much the media plays in this. Sad, but a sign of the times. We'll just have to count on storytellers to keep the stories alive