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Detroit a tale of two cities in one
By Stefani Rebekah Black January 26, 2006 |
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The City of Detroit is in economic turmoil with the closing of its museums, recreation centers, and the city built and ice rink in downtown for entertaining the All-Star game last season and the Super Bowl for the next two weeks. The rink is not a cheap skate to say the least and most Detroiters outside of downtown cannot afford to skate on a regular basis. Detroit is hosting Super Bowl XL featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks. Those practices, highlights, exercises, exposes on the players features were all part of the Super Bowl package to highlight the game and the city. Underneath that exciting layer lies the true Detroit that will lie in state after the Super Bowl leaves town. This past Monday Ford Company a major sponsor for the Super Bowl and the namesake of the site where the game will be played put a damper on the Super Bowl scene when they announced the lay off 30,000 employees. Those same employees are complaining about the money for renovation the city found to improve downtown but services will soon be cut at the end of this fiscal year. For example going around Detroit and reports on local radio station WXYT 1270 many of Detroit's office buildings have been renovated from decades of dilapidation. The city paid for improvements to give downtown a face-lift plus with the All-Star game last July and Ford Field this week. Detroiters have complained that all the attention has been directed on sprucing up downtown and nothing allocated to the neighborhoods. While having a spruced up downtown is great and having the Super Bowl in Detroit this week is an economic plus Detroiters still ask the question "if you have no money for the schools, museums, and health care than where did you get the money to fix downtown from." Downtown has been cleaned up at city expense, hotels, restaurants, entertainment have been added and downtown are the highlight of Detroit as it adds for a new and improved experience. Out of towners attending this year's big Super Bowl experience will find all these nice features about Detroit but to look at Detroit after the Super Bowl experience will be a totally different story. Detroit after the big game will be left to rot. The bean counters will have made their money and will walk away counting and the residents will be left holding the bag. Many of the visitors who are in Detroit to visit the Super Bowl will never venture outside of downtown except for those who have roots in Detroit. Residents have told Sportstalk that Detroit had some hope when CEO of Ford Bill Ford said that he was going to upgrade Ford and the business, that was a year ago. This week the real story came out with the 30,000 employee pink slip Ford handed out. The Detroit Free Press has said that layoffs at Ford would critically impact the city's economy and that new lay off announcements for city workers would further push the morale in the Motor City further in the doldrums. Residents have said that just paying for the light bill, water bill and food is an adventure and many who can find it are working two jobs or as much overtime as they can. Many are unemployed and working in the weather conditions in Detroit is not like working in the say bay area where the temperatures at night can dip in the 20s. Residents are financing homes, rent, and employees at Ford are trying to pay for their employee car discounts and some have bought the expensive Super Bowl ticket for around the scalped price of $1000.00. Detroit has also announced implementing budget cuts at the end of this fiscal year (July 1st) those will include cuts as many as 260 workers. Residents outside of downtown are complaining that the garbage men are also getting laid off and will be looking for work soon enough. That main concern has residents worried about garbage being piled up on their streets. A brand new Compuware's cooperate head quarter office is the one with the built in skating rink but will see less customers in downtown when the Super Bowl leaves town. Bottom line: Detroit's economic situation would lead you to believe that this is a city that knows how when you look at what Detroit has done to downtown with its improvements but after the big game local merchants have said that this is going to be a Detroit without its major auto industry and layoffs will once again will make downtown Detroit look like a spruced up ghost town. Stefani Rebekah Black co-hosts raiderfanradio.com each Tuesday and co-hosts Sportstalk weekends on 1430 KVVN San Jose and 1110 KLIB Sacramento and is covering the Pittsburgh Steelers side of the Super Bowl. |
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