Detroit City is the Place to be

Detroit City is The Place to be : the Afterlife of an American Metropolis
by Mark Binelli 318 pages
A socioeconomic study of life during and after when the bottom fell out of America's worst city. A majority of the book talks about the ruins of this once thriving metropolis. The Brush Park area alone is one of the most depressing urban sprawls in America. Over 70 Victorian and modernist mansions boarded up
and stripped of their copper and bronze by scrappers. Some new age residents have taken a risk and bought these mansions for rehab, hoping to revitalize this
ruined neighborhood. The people daring enough to do this are few and far between though. If you web search "Brush Park Detroit" you will see for yourself these beautiful buildings that have fallen into disrepair. Politics take up a good part of this book as well. Chronicling the rise and eventual fall of sleaze ball mayors like Coleman Young and Kwame Kilpatrick. Who are/were some of the worst people on this planet today. The book was great, well written with comical analogies. The author however,seemed a bit pretentious, and it seems that he is arrogant and a little bit of a  hipster. He did write a pretty good book though, so I'll cut him some slack.
    

Detroit: A Biography

Detroit : A Biography  by Scott Martelle 288 pages
A short but detailed history of America's "joke" city. Depressing but very well written. A good portion of the book catalogs the rise of the city from French and British fort to mega industrial city by the 1920s. With the second half focusing on the downfall  of assembly line productions, white flight in the 1960s and the string of corrupt and terrible mayors. You could go on and on as to why Detroit collapsed so fast, and never come up with a definitive answer. You would need to be allowed three reasons in your explanation. I loved this book, as urban decay has always been a fascinating subject to me. I would recommend this to anyone who reads non fiction. Or anybody who just wants to know why Detroit is so maligned now.