Why Detroit Went Broke

A masterful story on Detroit by The Detroit Free Press.

This is how newspapers may survive: by great journalism that people must read.

http://www.freep.com/article/20130915/NEWS01/130801004/


The story also neatly and firmly skewers that subterranean racists who still believe that everything went to heck when Mr. Coleman Young was elected mayor of Detroit.
If those people have the guts, they should read the facts.

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I had a great admiration for Mr. Young, and I append a poem I wrote for his passing:

Coleman Young's Funeral

(On a Friend's Funeral)



The many colored uniforms
of autumn line the street,
as we zouaves ramble on,
bearing him to Elmwood;
a telephone directory
of names and tears of your family -
they'll meet you on the other side
as now you fly away!


They came running to tell me news -
I’d heard it on the vine –
radio novelties all day
of our cold jubilees.
On wings of song you will soon lie
amid Egyptian sarcophagi
between neo-classic temples…
marching round Jericho!

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notes

Coleman Young  -  Mayor of Detroit,1974 to 1993

Elmwood - famous Detroit cemetery

zouave - soldiers, French and others, who wore colorful uniforms; three syllables pronounced zoo-AH-vee.

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