Once Americas capitalist dream town; Detroit is our countrys greatest urban failure; having fallen the longest and the farthest. But the citys worst crisis yet (and thats saying something) has managed to do the unthinkable: turn the end of days into a laboratory for the future. Urban planners; land speculators; neopastoral agriculturalists; and utopian environmentalistsmdash;all have been drawn to Detroits baroquely decaying; nothing-left-to-lose frontier.With an eye for both the darkly absurd and the radically new; Detroit-area native Mark Binelli has chronicled this convergence. Throughout the citys "museum of neglect"mdash;its swaths of abandoned buildings; its miles of urban prairiemdash;he tracks both the blight and the signs of its repurposing; from the school for pregnant teenagers to a beleaguered UAW local; from metal scrappers and gun-toting vigilantes to artists reclaiming abandoned auto factories; from the organic farming on empty lots to GMs risky wager on the Volt electric car; from firefighters forced by budget cuts to sleep in tents to the mayors realignment plan (the most ambitious on record) to move residents of half-empty neighborhoods into a viable; new urban center.Sharp and impassioned; Detroit City Is the Place to Be is alive with the sense of possibility that comes when a city hits rock bottom. Beyond the usual portrait of crime; poverty; and ruin; we glimpse a longshot future Detroit that is smaller; less segregated; greener; economically diverse; and better functioningmdash;what could be the boldest reimagining of a post-industrial city in our new century. Detroit City Is the Place to Be is one of Publishers Weeklys Top 10 Best Books of 2012
#1565512 in eBooks 2012-01-15 2012-01-15File Name: B00766I0L2
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