The Last Days of Detroit: Motor Cars, Motown and the Collapse of an Industrial Giant
Mark Binelli
Once America's capitalist dream town, the Silicon Valley of the Jazz Age, Detroit became the country's greatest urban failure, having fallen the longest and the furthest. The city of Henry Ford, modernity, and Motown found itself blighted by riots, arson, unemployment, crime and corruption.
But what happens to a once-great place after it has been used up and discarded? Who stays there to try to make things work again? And what sorts of newcomers are drawn there?
Mark Binelli returned to his native Detroit to explore the city's swathes of abandoned buildings, miles of urban prairie, and streets filled with wild dogs, to tell the story of the new society emerging from the debris. Here he chronicles Detroit with its urban farms and vibrant arts scene, Detroit as a laboratory for the post-industrial, post-recession world, Detroit reimagined as a city for a new century.
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About Mark Binelli
Reviews for The Last Days of Detroit: Motor Cars, Motown and the Collapse of an Industrial Giant
Douglas Kennedy
Times
A story of extremes, mapped out by a restrained, clear-headed guide who loves the city as much as he is baffled by it
Sean O’Hagan
Observer
This book could easily be an epitaph but Binelli finds green shoots of optimism sprouting up amid the debris
Mick Brown
Daily Telegraph
A superb, diligent, forensic, study of the fall of a great city
Jim Carroll
Irish Times
Binelli is a gifted storyteller... this is a story told with vitality, wit and affection… the reader cannot fail to be moved by his conclusion, rooted in Detroit’s own motto. Speramus meliora. We hope for better things
Melanie McGrath
Sunday Telegraph
Binelli is a Detroit native, and if he provides an authoritative portrait of urban cataclysm, he also faithfully charts the glorious rise of the Motor City… His account is often mesmerising in its shocking detail
Peter Carty
Independent on Sunday
Deeply intelligent, sceptical, passionate and informative. An important work of contemporary cultural analysis, it is also wonderfully entertaining
Kevin Powers
Sunday Business Post
Binelli’s compelling book is a nightmare vision of a city which refuses to die
David Sternhouse
Scotland on Sunday