David Byrne: Don't Forget the Motor City

Having lived in Michigan for almost all my life, I find Mr. Byrne's conclusion and observations about Detroit to be pretty accurate. I want to point out that not all parts of Detroit are ruinous; mid-town with Wayne State University, the DIA (Detroit Institute of Art), and other universities in the area make for an interesting and healthy part of town. As far as the tech scene, I'd say it's mainly concentrated in the Ann Arbor area.

Great article about the history, but unfortunately, being outside of Detroit, the author has only barely scraped the surface of all of the amazing people that are still in and around Detroit doing real things to make a real difference.<p>Just take a look at the TEDx Detroit event [1] that I was fortunate enough to attend last week for evidence.<p>If you haven't seen the amazing difference that everyday people like Chazz Miller [2], or Claire Nelson [3], or Terry Bean [4], or many others are making, then you don't know what's possible for Detroit.<p>Also, if anyone is interested, I'm excited about a great movie being made about Detroit and what's possible, called Lemonade Detroit [5].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.tedxdetroit.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.tedxdetroit.com/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.publicartworkz.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.publicartworkz.org/</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.thedindecor.com/2008/06/city-speak-and-interview-with-claire-nelson-shop-owner-bureau-of-urban-living/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thedindecor.com/2008/06/city-speak-and-interview-...</a><p>[4] <a href="http://twitter.com/motorcity" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/motorcity</a><p>[5] <a href="http://lemonadedetroit.com/" rel="nofollow">http://lemonadedetroit.com/</a>

Thanks for submitting this. These are the kinds of non-startup stories I like to find on HN (I'm a fan of David Byrne's blog but I somehow missed this one).

Personally, I just want to see the Naive Melody video that David produced.<p>Fantastic song by the star of the best concert movie of all time.

I was born and raised in a suburb of Detroit. It's sad to see it die so much even over the course of my short life time.<p>I am watching the Requiem for Detroit documentary linked in the blog entry, it's well done.

Detroit's story of a working-class town that failed to evolve is depressingly familiar throughout the US in many small towns whose main industries have moved on - for example, the old railway towns. I feel these towns die because they lack the critical mass of people with a culture that embraces technology and change.<p>Unfortunately, the pain that comes with this evolutionary process is probably unavoidable. To change it would require a wholesale change in culture - something that takes a generation, if not more.

I'm a fifth generation Detroiter and have lived in MI my entire life. The people are like nowhere else. In my many travels, despite the state's troubles, I haven't met anyone who has left who doesn't want to come back if they could.<p>I think there is hope for converting large swaths of Detroit to farmland and reinventing the city. As I am fond of saying any idea that has among its supporters both Barack Obama and Rush Limbaugh just has to happen ;&#60;).

Starting point for any SE Michigan startup folks: <a href="http://a2newtech.org" rel="nofollow">http://a2newtech.org</a><p>More about the Ann Arbor scene: <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/dugsong/ann-arbor-startup-community-development-h109-1759718" rel="nofollow">http://www.slideshare.net/dugsong/ann-arbor-startup-communit...</a>

I’ve always wondering if farming could be a solution for Detroit? It seems to have plenty of land and with growing shortages of basic commodities such as Wheat on the global market surely there’s an opportunity to return large parts of the land back to farming use.

Nice to see the positive reference to Glasgow - I had forgotten that Byrne was born in Scotland.

What's wrong with having a few cities like this? If you had clean, organized cities through the country, life would be boring and the visuals would be monotonous.<p>Broken down buildings are history. A country should not be made up of suburban sameness, just like a mole on a models face enhances her beauty, enclaves of disorganisation can make the country as a whole more interesting and prettier.