The annual CAE Conference was held in Detroit this year, and like any conference, the host city plays an important role in the overall feel of the conference. This was my first experience in Detroit, and I was encouraged by the aura of optimism engulfing the city. Nationally, everyone knows of the recessions blow to Detroit- the city that was perhaps more emblematic of that recession than any other. The housing crisis, the auto-industry collapse, the blow to manufacturing. . . Detroit had it all, along with a corrupt mayor, resulting in bankruptcy.
But that is not the Detroit of today.
Today, Detroit is surging- downtown is alive, manufacturing has returned, the grit of the City has become a banner to be waved on the road to resurgence. Detroit is emblematic of a national trend, and seems as likely as any City to be able to become a platform for what the post-recession America wants to be. Nationally, there is a sense of returning to American ideals that were forgotten in the past 60 years. A return to housing that is longer-lasting, better-sized, more efficient, less about keeping up with the Jones' and more about living in an appropriate matter suited to a social responsibility; an idea of consumerism that is not simply about having more and more stuff, but about choice to purchase quality, manufactured goods; a return to locally farmed, raised, manufactured, grown, constructed, built, developed fill-in-the-blank that allows us to have a sense of origin in the food we consume and the goods we purchase. This is the new America, and Detroit seems poised to reclaim its position at the epicenter of this new ideal.