Impressions of Detroit

A chilly spring day on the Detroit River - Downtown Detroit from Windsor, Ontario

I fell in love with the impressionist style of painting many years ago, during an exhibition of Monet's work at the Art Institute of Chicago during my college years. I love how impressionism tries to capture not how something really looks, but how the eye captures the interplay of the subject and light and the tricks-the-eyes-play. A different time or vantage or combination can give a completely different image. Our family's brief trip to Detroit this week brought impressionism to mind many times. The combinations of images that form Detroit are at times difficult to unite in one impression, yet somehow coalesce at the same time into a coherent whole. 

Detroit has the usual features of a large American city -- ribbons of freeways, ornate early-20th-century stone skyscrapers, shiny later towers, sprawl. Yet it is different from most other cities I've visited -- even other "rust belt" cities fallen on hard times -- in that the contrast between the monuments of the city's glory days of 1920-1950 stand in such stark contrast with the monuments to the city's dramatic fall in the second half of the twentieth century. I struggle to think of another major city that has experienced this kind of meteoric rise followed by such a dramatic fall. Detroit has some beautiful "bones" -- stunning art deco and beaux arts architecture, splendid museums (the Detroit Institute of Arts is one of the finest I have visited, both in its collection and presentations) -- all situated on the dramatic geographical space of the narrows of the Detroit River. Most of these gems continue to shine today or are in the process of being renewed. Some dramatic new buildings have also joined the skyline, as have sparkling new sports arenas in the heart of downtown. 

The ruins of Michigan Central Station (from historicdetroit.org - a great site)

Despite these positives, I have never seen the level of urban decay that I saw in Detroit. While cities like Akron and Cleveland and Indianapolis have highly blighted neighborhoods, it doesn't seem quite as systemic as the decay seems in Detroit, with quite literally falling-down buildings in the very heart of downtown. Beyond the core of the city, some neighborhoods seemed more like semi-rural areas, with only perhaps one of twenty original homes remaining amidst renewed prairies of grass. In one neighborhood, artists have taken to transforming abandoned homes into objects of art (which has played a role in renewal of that neighborhood). The iconic Michigan Central Station -- perhaps the grandest ruin in Detroit -- looms above the Ambassador Bridge from Windsor, Ontario. In so many ways, the influences that led to the decline of so many inner cities in America -- the advent of the automobile and highways that allowed for sprawl to suburbs, troubled race relations from the late 1960s, deindustrialization, dysfunctional politics -- were concentrated on the urban reality of Detroit. 

Yet from an impressionistic viewpoint, one that attempts to see the whole and not just the parts, Detroit is a fascinating place. Amidst a seemingly empty neighborhood, a shiny furniture store functions on a major avenue. Vast open grasslands grow under the shadows of the business district. Little by little the lights come on in long-emtpy downtown buildings. A restored Victorian mansion sits in its grandness as the only home left on its block. A thriving restaurant thrives on a street of largely abandoned buildings a block off of the Grand Circus Park. I really can't fathom the effort it takes to lead a city like Detroit and to face its political, social, and economic challenges (it has recently been taken over by the state of Michigan). But despite the brokenness, there is hope evidenced everywhere. People are clearly pouring themselves into the city at all levels. The sum of these parts, viewed from various angles, is indeed striking and beautiful.