Hey Detroit! Get Small, It's The New Big

As we’ve witnessed with General Motors, getting smaller is required to survive. Over the past 100 years, GM grew to match the burgeoning demands of a growing country. But just as an ailing senior citizen pays a price for hard living, GM has been ailing for decisions made decades ago. Now it has the opportunity to wipe the slate clean, regroup and get smaller to meet the new demands of the consumer.

Is Detroit any different from this? As the auto industry boomed, our city grew in unison. City borders were expanded, while schools, churches and stores were built to match the increased population. By the 1950’s, Detroit’s population peaked near 2 million around the same time GM’s market share peaked over 50%. They’ve both been in sharp decline ever since. GM is able to eliminate brands, factories, employees and dealerships to get smaller. How does a city get smaller? So far, it doesn’t. We have a city that has capacity for 2 million people, but has less than a million. A plethora of vacant schools, churches and stores have created an urban graveyard. So Detroit needs to do what GM is doing and get small.

Radical? Yes. Possible? Maybe not. But I never thought I would see GM and Chrysler simultaneously in bankruptcy, so I don’t know what’s too radical or not possible anymore. Detroit, Flint and Saginaw have become modern-day ghost towns. They grew in a boom of auto gold, then tapped of its resources, were left to decay. Having so much empty land in this country is a blessing and a curse. The curse is – if something gets old and tired, we can walk away and build new somewhere else. It’s time for our local, state and federal politicians to think completely out-of-the-box and ask the awkward question-- How can we make a city smaller? Why expand further out in the suburbs when we can expand inward. Is it too radical to propose to cut Detroit in half, relocate people to one half and wipe the slate clean with the rest? Keep the historic and still populated neighborhoods, but completely demolish the decadence that permeates throughout. Bring much of it back to the farmland it was 100 years ago, ready to be expanded when necessary. Reincorporate these cities with new charters, city governments, school boards, etc. A fresh look at a newer, cleaner and more consolidated city is intriguing.

I’m not so naïve to think this wouldn’t require massive federal aid. And we all know that the federal government would never take the gamble to throw billions of dollars at problems without guarantees. Or do we? It’s worth a “small” conversation.

69 Years Ago Today......

If studying history has given me nothing else, it has given me perspective. And perspective is a gift. It allows you to relate to current events in your own life without overreacting – good or bad. If things are going well, perspective can give you humility. If things are going bad, perspective gives you solace.

So on June 18, 1940, Winston Churchill (the Prime Minister of Britain) gave a speech to Parliament. It was the first year of World War II and Germany had just rolled through France and took over the country – completely unprovoked. Churchill knew that Britain was Hitler’s next target and they we’re going to be in a fight for their lives - literally. Here is an excerpt from one of the most famous speeches ever given:

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France, is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

Less than a month later, the Germans starting bombing England incessantly. People in London were forced to live in the subways for fear of the bombings in their neighborhoods. The battle lasted a year and England never gave in. Some historians believe this was the turning point in the war. If Hitler got Britain, he would have their airfields to help fly bombers to North America.

So when you feel things are tough out there, go on-line and find an 80 year old from England to chat with. Ask them what it was like to live in a subway while their home was being decimated for being in a country that Hitler needed in his quest for world domination. Ask them what it was like to know that any given day someone they knew and loved would get killed – completely unprovoked. Or that they themselves could be in harms way by simply running outside to get their food rations for the day. Then ask them how they’re handling these “tough” times we’re faced with today. I bet you might just get an LOL.

Yep. History sure does give you perspective.