Opinion
Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us.
Editorial
Remaking Detroit
T
he move of Quicken Loans to
downtown Detroit had been
rumored for months, so the
formal announcement was not quite a
stunner.
Still, Dan Gilbert's decision to take his
thriving company into the heart of the city
from its present location in Livonia was
a heartening development for those who
believe that a vibrant downtown holds the
key to redefining the entire metro area.
The addition of 4,000 jobs is a great
boost to Detroit's economic picture. But
there is a greater meaning to this move.
It brings Gilbert, 45, into the forefront
of the area's major players and also under-
lines the fact that the generation unbur-
dened by memories of what Detroit used
to be is the best hope for remaking it.
Where many older residents of this area
look to the city and see only regrets, a new
group of business leaders sees opportuni-
ty. Gilbert's new headquarters will, in fact,
be placed atop one of downtown's haunted
places, either the site of the J.L. Hudson
store on Woodward or the Statler Hotel on
Grand Circus Park. One of those ghosts
will finally be put to rest.
Downtown bears little resemblance
to the moribund business district of 15
years ago. Fresh ideas and new gathering
places, stadiums and casinos, restau-
rants and offices, a new look for the tired
Renaissance Center and a new life for the
Book Cadillac — all of it is transforming
the urban core.
There have been so many false dawns
for the city since the riots of 40 years ago
that it is easy to dismiss this one, too. But
it is the cumulative impact of all these
forces that has come close to a achieving a
sort of critical mass.
It is still imperative for a residential
community of young adults with a good
deal of discretionary income to come
downtown. That will, in turn, create a
demand for retail and other services
— things the urban core lacks now.
There also are those who complain that
all Detroit has done is play beggar-my-
neighbor by shifting jobs from another
local community. But for good or ill, it is
Detroit that symbolizes all of this region,
and not Livonia.
That suburb has undergone a renewal of
its own, as any drive along Interstate 275
or Haggerty Road reveals. It is never pleas-
ant to shed 4,000 jobs. But they will act
Dry Bones
ANNAPOLIS
STARTED WITH A
PUBLIC DEMAND
UGMTRE
FOR ISRAEL TO
MAKE "PAINFUL
CONCESSIONSI!
as more of a catalyst to
Detroit than they ever
would in Livonia.
Dan Gilbert is walk-
ing in a path blazed by
Max Fisher, another
member of the Detroit
Jewish community
who did all he could to
revive the fortunes of
his hometown. Now it
WELL THAT'S
is up to others to follow.
(BUT
TO
BE EXPECTED.
There are reports
FROM THE
that Josh Linkner, a
ISRAELI
close business associate
SIDE/!
of Gilbert's, may choose
to move his booming
e-Prize company down-
town from Pleasant
Ridge. The sort of
young, innovative men
and women who work
for this organization
www.drybonesblog.com
would be a perfect fit
for the downtown that
is taking shape.
own best possibilities.
To be honest, even with the best sce-
And for all those concerned with keep-
nario, downtown Detroit is not going to be ing our talented young people in this area,
Chicago. But it can be Detroit, true to its
that is a lot. I 1
Reality Check
Time To Get Real
W
e used to hear a lot about the
generation gap back in the
60s. Bob Dylan told our elders
to get out of the way because the times
they were a-changin'.
How did that all work out? Well, after
acquiring a job, a family and a mortgage
the erstwhile revolutionaries discovered
they weren't a-changin' quite as much as
they thought.
But now the genuine generation gap is
here, and it is not based on anything as
ephemeral as politics. It is technology that
defines the divide.
I think of my computer as a tool.
Sometimes it is useful, sometimes annoy-
ing — kind of like a hammer, which is
what I would like to take to the thing on
certain days.
To the generations behind me, though,
the computer seems to be the threshold
to a separate reality. And when it overlaps
into the real reality, they seem genuinely
confused.
A26
December 13 2007
Look at those high school
students in the suburb of
Belleville, expelled because they
posted pictures of themselves
in gangster garb with guns and
drugs on YouTube. The kids and
their families claimed they were
only publicizing a rap album. It
had nothing to do with the real
world.
But how isolated can you be?
School administrators saw the
pictures and all they thought of
was Columbine and Virginia Tech, where
gunmen had posted similarly disturbing
images. The Belleville school board would
have been derelict in its duties if it had let
this pass.
This wasn't like a third grader drawing
a picture of a gun in art class or a kinder-
gartner bringing a plastic knife to class to
cut her birthday cake. Those were cases in
which school officials behaved like idiots.
To any one in touch with reality, however,
these YouTube images were
a warning, and it had to be
heeded.
The reality of the Internet
had spilled over into the real
world.
Recent college gradu-
ates are also finding to their
sorrow that prospective
employers are going onto the
Internet to gather informa-
tion about them. When they
appear with a bottle of beer
in their hands, muttering "Dude, I am so
wasted;' it doesn't do much for their job
prospects.
They seem stunned that anyone would
be unsporting enough to track them onto
the Internet and check up on them there.
Isn't that supposed to be a separate space?
A private place?
But in an era when concerns about
privacy are quite legitimate, it seems the
most exhibitionistic generation in our
history is cavorting around the Internet
prepared to show anything to the world at
large.
It's not that they're dumb. It's just a case
of trying to stuff reality into a separate
compartment that just will not stay sealed.
Google almost anything these days and
YouTube material turns up.
Sometimes that's great. I was recently
trying, for example, to find the lyrics to an
old Hoagy Carmichael song, "How Little
We Know." Within seconds I found myself
watching a clip of Lauren Bacall (actu-
ally the voice of a teenage Andy Williams)
singing that song to Bogie in a movie.
Someone had posted it on their YouTube
space.
But when it is used with no discretion,
YouTube can be disastrous. The Internet
eats its young, and it is very much a real
world meal. II
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .