Comments on: Detroit is dead. Long Live Detroit!

By: Teaching English in Taiwan

Teaching English in Taiwan — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:36:40 +0000

Interesting post. I have made a twitter post about this. My friends will enjoy reading it also.

By: cnulan

cnulan — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:14:47 +0000

What does the spirit of the twentieth century come back as?

it doesn't....,

what was it like in the 19th century?

By: tootsis

tootsis — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:09:32 +0000

Doc had a conversation with a journalist for Crain business week publication,his take on the freep and news latest ;is that neither tried to get better i.e. sell advertisement ,they waited for customer to materialize versus a proactive stand;an example is the obit column,haven't change in 177 years, no diversity,people of color don't buy obit adds?

By: tootsis

tootsis — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:13:02 +0000

Detroit I dare say has more potential than other urban area because of its population density,do I hear urban gardening,what about a new application of community architectonic, tear down cost will be minimal

By: cnulan

cnulan — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:35:06 +0000

ruh roh….,

without a redo, that'll be the last time I try to paste some html source even if I take it from one of my own blogposts. The thought is twofold, however. First, there is the singular symbolic and functional place held within the American psyche by the automobile – so the demise of the hub of the automotive industry is singular.

Second, and more to the point, if 70% of large enterprise software implementations fail due to poor change management and user acceptance (and these are just to automate existing business processes, not revolutionize a way of life) then what is the likelihood that the level of comprehensive change management required to transition Detroit from its terminal current state to a resurrected future state could be mounted, regardless of the level of local, regional and national engagement?

By: cnulan

cnulan — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:30:38 +0000

I have to consult google maps and then think about this rather hard before endeavoring an answer. Meanwhile, I offer the following placeholder to your assertion "so goes Detroit, so goes urban America....,"

Amanda Kovattana goes straight to the heart of Orlov's treatment of our predicament, uncovering at least one of the fundamental assumptions inherent to being a fish in these American waters;
Along the way, he reveals pithy insights to explain how the American system works in contrast with the Russian one. For instance the story of the classless society is exemplified by the concept of a middle class — something Americans have proudly espoused — which he points out is held together by the common denominator of everyone owning a car. That's right, not education, not equal opportunity, or equal rights but the one-ton behemoth that we must have to get around the wasteful geography created by suburbia.

We know about this waste from the film The End of Suburbia and James Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere and all the other peak oil fellows, but Orlov points out that because we are so identified with owning a car as part of this American middle class identity we will be hard put to let it go. And when we are forced to (due to diminishing and increasingly expensive gasoline supplies) so will go the myth of the middle class. In turn he explains how the Russians lost faith in the classless worker's paradise because they could clearly see that there was an elite strutting around in cool Armani threads. Meanwhile the lack of consumer goods and trendy fashions meant that a good life for all never became a reality.

And because our ideologically indoctrinated minds are so closed to such deep seated change and so invested in our "can do" innovation, we will, like Napoleon, be unable to retreat from the overextended, oil fueled, debt based economy which is poised to come crashing down, financed as it is by foreign investment that will eventually decide that we are not a good credit risk.
And there it is in a nutshell. Few national politicians dare give voice to what's just beyond the signpost up ahead. Being unwilling and unable to discuss reality, how then could they ever go about proposing, much less implementing, any of the radical engineering redesigns required to genuinely rebuild along viable and sustainable lines? The patient is as yet utterly unwilling to hear an objective and accurate diagnosis. With no diagnosis, how can she participate in her own treatment, much less get on board with the radical measures required to effect an actual cure?