More on the Decline of Detroit

From the WSJ:

Crowned as the arsenal of democracy in World War II, Detroit seemed to have everything going for it -- a strategic location on the Great Lakes waterway, a thriving auto industry, well-paying jobs and the legacy of superb city planning: magnificent avenues and parks, palace-like public buildings, striking commercial architecture and handsome residential housing in dozens of thriving neighborhoods.

How much things have changed. Detroit today is so deeply depressed economically and so permeated by its illegal drug trade that it is now perfectly apt to tell the city's story from the point of view of two young black drug dealers. This is what Luke Bergmann sets out to do in "Getting Ghost." The title mingles a street phrase -- "getting ghost" means to disappear from the neighborhood or to float in and out of the drug trade or simply to die -- with a metaphorical reference to Detroit's ghostly past.

Here's a previous installment about the downfall of Rock City.