“America is rich but not rich enough to afford throw-away cities.” Speaking was my new boss, Coleman Alexander Young, Mayor of Detroit. It was March 1981. We were in his office looking due south across the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario. Young’s point was that Detroit had rendered too many services to Michigan and America to rust away. 

The power of any Mayor of Detroit approaches that of General MacArthur in post-war Japan. The Mayor needs only three allies on the nine-person city council to prevail without being vetoed. Great is the contrast with the limp powers of Asheville’s mayor. If the fire department or the police department misfunctions in Detroit, blame the Mayor. For he hires their chiefs. He alone can fire them. Detroiters think the same way about garbage disposal, water delivery and other public services. Officially, the government of Detroit is non-partisan. In fact it is an enduring fiefdom of liberal, big-government Democrats.

in March 1981 I was loaned for two years by  the U.S. Department of State to the City of Detroit as the Mayor’s Special Assistant for International Economic Development. (See my December 11, 1997 column in the Asheville TRIBUNE.) Detroit was once America’s fourth largest city. Its population peaked in 1957 at 1.9 million people. The 1980 census revealed a city with barely one million residents. Houston had just leapt ahead  and Detroit sank to America’s sixth largest city. 

The Mayor’s great political friend Jimmy Carter would not have been elected President in 1976 without Coleman Young and other black leaders. From 1977 until 1981 Jimmy Carter owed Coleman Young. Carter’s administration gushed block grants and orchestrated the Federal bailout of the Chrysler Corporation, the biggest private employer within city limits.

President Carter lost the 1980 election. Enter Ronald Reagan.  Mayor Young had referred to Mr. Reagan as "Old Pruneface." If anything was to save Detroit from becoming a rust bucket shell of its once great self, it would not be Reagan administration largesse.

A city over half white in 1970 was nearly two-thirds black by 1981. Half the white population had fled because of school integration and busing. Detroit public school teachers would often declare an illegal strike at the beginning of each school year. They would routinely return to work after an enhanced pay and benefits package which included amnesty. Arson abounded. Detroit was the U.S. murder capital. The “Cass Corridor” leading north from downtown Detroit looked like war torn Beirut. Companies which made parts to supply the big three auto manufacturers were fleeing Detroit for Indiana.

Still the mayor fought on. He induced General Motors to build a gigantic plant on the border of Detroit and Hamtramck. Detroit contributed by condemning and razing of hundreds of homes and buildings.The mayor also pushed through downtown elevated rail transport. He revitalized the Detroit River front.

I left Detroit in 1983 for the American Embassy in Paramaribo, Surinam. I have returned a half dozen times since. But last month [September 1998] a new, sparkling Detroit sprang out at me The city was not the basket case of 1981.

Coleman Young rests in his grave. His genial successor, Dennis Archer, is skillfully reknitting whites and blacks, city and suburbs.  General Motors is relocating its world headquarters from miles inland to Renaissance Center on the river. The gigantic Hudson’s Department store, a fixture since 1911, made history October 24th [1998] as the world’s largest steel structure ever taken down by implosion. A new business and shopping complex will take its place. Governor John Engler is given credit for lowering statewide property taxes and taking a more free market approach to public education. Private businessmen have given generously to create "schools in churches" in Detroit.

There are new public issues and personalities. Dr. Jack Kevorkian was not a household word 1981-1983. But he and his lawyer Geoffrey Fieger are now the talk of the state. Fieger is the eccentric Democratic contender for Governor.  Kevorkian and Fieger have created  momentum behind their cause of assisted suicide. Indeed, a proposal to legalize and regulate that process is on the November [1998] ballot. Detroit pulpits demand a NO vote.

My wife’s parents repose in Mt. Elliott cemetery, a three-minute drive from
the heart of downtown Detroit. In 1983 a prudent person would not have
walked alone by that graveyard on a cloudy day, much less at night. There was a  wasteland between it and downtown. Now the intervening space is uniquely re-gentrifying. High rise luxury apartments stand cheek by jowl with attractive low-cost housing. Tiger Stadium is to be relocated much closer to the center of town. The city is downright clean. Along Outer Drive East, once all white neighborhoods are now nearly all black. They look great. The city which created MoTown sound abounds in great restaurants. hospitals, theaters and colleges. Detroit  plans to build state of the art gambling casinos to compete with brash Windsor. Black entrepreneurs are everywhere.

Election season [1998] in Michigan is now ending. In comparison with 1981-1983 the tone is much less racist and harsh. People sense that they now have partnership among Detroit, its suburbs and the State Capital, Lansing. Granted, Governor Engler is probably not amused by his brash, populist opponent, the Huey Long wannabe, Detroit lawyer Geoffrey Fieger.  Many liberal Democrats fault Republican Engler for being dull and plodding and  for tackling (while usually solving) only one big problem at a time. Mr. Fieger is, nonetheless, widely seen as needlessly rocking a pretty nice and newly stable boat.

All honor the memory of Detroit’s own Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, heavyweight boxing champion of the world, and World War II veteran. Like Joe Louis, Detroiters are battlers. During the dismal early 1980s they did not whine. Neither did they rust. In the 1890s Detroit had been the buggy whip and cast iron stove capital of the world. It then remade itself into the automobile capital. Detroiters are on their feet again. Looking good. They will never let anybody throw Motown away. 

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for Asheville TRIBUNE