The Decline and Fall of the Automobile Empire

In this NY Times Magazine piece, Jonathon Mahler puts a human face on the ongoing tragedy in Detroit. The story centers on Marvin Powell, devoted father, husband, and pillar of his dying community. I find myself unsure of how to feel about this man's plight and what has happened to the auto industry there. On the one hand, I appreciate that Marvin and his wife are doing the best that they can (now) in a very tough situation. Admirably, while providing for his family, he has apparently succeeded in avoiding the den of iniquity that is the parking lot of the auto plant.

The plant was a world of temptations unto itself, with drugs, alcohol, numbers runners, bookies and even “parking-lot girls” who would come to the plant during lunch breaks to service male workers. “Anything you can find outside the plant, you can find inside the plant,” Powell says. Hardly "emblematic of the American spirit" as put by President Obama.

I'm not naive enough to think that our other American institutions are without their seedy underbellies, but I have to wonder with an already defunct business model is a company where this vice is allowed to go on as well really worth saving? Is this Detroit plant "emblematic" of others among the Three?

On the other hand, I'm incensed by the matter of fact reasons that Marvin and his wife both dropped out of college, which likely guaranteed the path to their current predicament - their fate tied inextricably to the plant's.

[Marvin] dropped out halfway toward his degree. He wasn’t the most focused student. What’s more, he had a weakness for trendy clothes and racked up about $800 in credit-card debt. His father was already covering his tuition...." Similarly his wife, Shirese, dropped out of college during her sophomore year having "sour[ed] on the party scene. Both were in school and CHOSE to drop out. This part chips away at my empathy a bit.

Part of the way, Marvin maintains his optimism is his faith. He's an armor bearer at Greater Grace, a community ministry occupying a modest $35 million dollar campus. His faith, along with many in his community, is strong and believes that God will provide. Their consistent tithing clearly demonstrates. Here hope seems to be the overriding plan.

Poor past decisions aside, Marvin and Shirese are doing the best they can, having invested their lives in an industry driven into the ground by greed and myopia, in a situation that I cannot even fathom. For me, the larger question is what should we do about the dying of a once great American city? I believe in the idea of creative destruction like a good capitalist. But the realist in me thinks that "spirit of creativity" cannot and will not grow from the economic wasteland that Motor City has become. Are we compelled to help revive Detroit as we have to a certain extent New Orleans? Is there shame in having a major city die within our own borders?