Reflections on Detroit

Hi folks, so I started my trip east at the end of last week with a stop over in Detroit before going on to London, Ontario. If you ever get to DEtorit, i heartily recommned staying at the Inn on Ferry Street. This Hotel consists of 3 grand old homes converted into large hotel-like rooms. The staff is most helpful and friendly, and they will run you all around Detroit in one of their vans. It is close enough to downtown Detroit that you can get down to the center of the city and Greektown in five minutes, or the new ball park. Around the corner from the Inn is the Detroit Art institute and the main public library, along with the historical museum. And Wayne state is right there as well.

This morning I took a short walk around the cultural district, and had plenty to think about. I like aspects of Detroit, despite all the press that attack its present condition. The architecture remains quite beautiful, and the near empty streets evoke a kind of melancholy. But one can still feel the greatness of a city that once was at the heart of American industrial and economic growth. The churches downtown are still beautiful if only sparsely attended.

Will it come back? Probably not in my lifetime. Will it become a ghost town? Equally unlikely. Is Detroit's decline a forerunner of a larger decline that all of America will experience within the next two decades? Maybe.