Detroit: America’s Self-Loathing of the Rust Belt (And What That Says About Us)

Yesterday, I explained why I think Microsoft sees its customers as idiots — an opinion that sparked a debate about the very nature of advertising.  Like politics, war and most other conflicts, advertising boils down to the challenge of convincing other people that YOUR worldview (or your client’s) is the most valid.

So does that mean we can save Detroit by rebranding it?

TIME magazine thinks so.  That’s why they’re sponsoring a major contest to rebrand the city, hoping it will cause Americans to see Detroit as something other than the crater at the bottom of the American dream — and to once again invest their time, money and talent in the region.  In short, TIME believes Americans should be proud to call Detroit home.  As Time, Inc.’s editor-in-chief, John Huey, wrote on October 5th:

“No city has had more influence on the country’s economic and social evolution. Detroit was the birthplace of both the industrial age and the nation’s middle class, and the city’s rise and fall — and struggle to rise again — are a window into the challenges facing all of modern America.”

Revitalizing the city is obviously a priority for the people of Michigan, as well as those directly affected by the area’s economic woes.  And that TIME is willing to take such an active interest in the region should be inspiring.  But judging by some analysts’ reactions to TIME’s efforts as “crazy and futile,” it seems that not everyone believes Detroit can — or even should — be resuscitated.

We Hate Me

As a former Pittsburgher and current Baltimorean, I can appreciate the uphill battle that once-great industrial cities must fight to rescue their self-image from the wreckage of a collapsed economy.  Detroit was cars, and our car culture has failed us, and so it must seem justifiable and cathartic to blame Detroit for the mess we’re in.

But Detroit is people, just like Pittsburgh and Baltimore are people.  When industries erode, the character of the cities that fueled those industries is disrupted — sometimes for decades.  (Hell, Pittsburgh’s been voted America’s Most Livable City and you still can’t get people to take it seriously.)

So how is it that Americans can write off whole sections of their own country, and delight in their fellow citizens’ struggles?

How do we not yet understand, in the 21st Century, that our nation is a composite of its best and worst, its brightest and dimmest, and that every city is caught somewhere in the cycle between prosper and collapse?

How can we sit back smugly while a city implodes and say “I told you so” or “They had it coming” or “Thank God I don’t live there”?

You don’t want to save Detroit?  Or Pittsburgh?  Or Baltimore, Cleveland, Youngstown, Buffalo…?  You’d rather write them off, and let the people you think were too stupid to escape while they had a chance now play catch-up for the next few years, or decades?

No worries.

Detroit will bounce back.  The blue collar cities have a backbone, and the people who live there take pride in who they are and what they do — even if what they do changes with the rise and fall of industries.  They’ll survive.

Artists will see a story in Detroit, and they’ll move there to create.  Investors will see opportunity in Detroit, and they’ll build there because it’s affordable.  Families will see their futures in Detroit, and they’ll lay down roots there because they want their children to be from somewhere with a history and a horizon.

Say what you will about the plight of the Rust Belt, but it was there before you were, and it’ll be here after you’re gone.

And if you can’t get behind that image of America, convincing you might not be worth the effort.

Tags: America, Armchair Sociology, baltimore, branding, history, inspiration, perception, Pittsburgh, politics, rust belt