When the burning stops: a new optimism in Detroit

摘要

I had read so much about Detroit and its problems with arson that I went to see it for myself. Detroit is only 90 minutes by plane from New York City, but it might as well be on a different planet as the difference between the two cities is so vast. But it was not always the case. New York suffered hugely from crime and violence in the 1970s; large areas of the city were abandoned and many buildings were lost to fire. The response of the New York Fire Department to widespread arson is well documented in Joe Flood's 2010 book, The Fires. Forty years on from the Bronx burning and New York is a very different place. And it is this renewal that makes me hopeful for Detroit. Not so the filmmakers, who set out a dystopian view of Detroit in the newly released film, Brick Mansions. There is a scene where the Mayor of a fictional 2018 Detroit tries to clear the blight of the city - the Brick Mansions - by getting a bomb detonated to achieve cheap site clearance regardless of the cost of human lives.