Detroit has been in the news lately, what with the Northwest Airlines terrorist incident, but what is and was Detroit, and how has Detroit fared in relation to other one industry towns? Pittsburgh for example? In 1859 Charles Dickens published A Tale Of Two Cities. The two cities were London and Paris. One hundred and fifty years later the tale of two cities is Pittsburgh and Detroit. Both lost their reason for existence, Pittsburgh lost its steel mills and Detroit lost its auto plants. Yet Pittsburgh seems to have survived while Detroit is down the drain, never, probably, to recover. In Pittsburgh the government is no worse than municipal government has historically ever been, while in Detroit municipal government has been taken over by thugs and criminals. Why have things turned out reasonably well for Pittsburgh but disastrously for Detroit? Beats me. Nobody knows. The fact that Detroit is 81.6% black and 10.5% white while Pittsburgh is 27.5% black and 66.9% white undoubtedly has nothing to do with it. 

 

 

Who now remembers Al Kaline

A stadium named Briggs

The brand new Ford assembly line

With shiny tools and jigs

After the war when car was king

And Reuther was the man

He made the deals, they kissed his ring

And for a while it ran

But came the city’s vacant nights

As crime and violence grew

And politicians chased the whites

Till there were very few

Today Detroit is at a loss

And ruled by thieves and crooks

Where racial politics is boss

And schoolkids have no books

All our great cities ‘cross the land

Are headed Detroit’s way

As whites flee crime to suburbs and

 Who’s left in town fall prey

To crooks and thieves and racial groups

Black Panthers and the like

Who strip the cities bare while dupes

Demand whites take a hike

Where now Kaline and Tigertown

Big Gordy and the Cup

Assembly lines are now run down

And all the jigs are up