Conference in Detroit: Day 3

The conference is winding down. By tomorrow, all the delegates will have left this city and Detroit will once again lose thousands of potential tourists thanks to negative word-of-mouth advertising. It's really a shame because this city has the potential to be so nice if they just fix the roads, tear down the abandoned buildings and beautify the riverfront. When I was at Comerica Park for the Tigers vs White Sox game tonight, I really felt that I had given this city an unfairly bad rap. The view of the Detroit skyline from the new, but oldschool ball park was very pleasant. The old brick-faced buildings more than made up for the absence of new steel and glass behemoths that dominate the skylines of so many other North American cities. Up until the 7th inning stretch, I almost thought Detroit looked pretty classy from my bleacher seats. But my praise of Detroit was shortlived. When the sun went down, it became awfully clear that most, if not all the classy oldschool skyscrapers in the downtown core were either unoccupied or downright abandoned--not one of them was lit up.

As I pack my stuff up for the roadtrip back to Toronto tomorrow, it occurs to me that this conference in Detroit is quite similar to a trip on a cruise ship. In the later case, you spend a week in a palace floating on a turbulent sea; in the former, you spend a week in a palace floating on a turbulent sea of dust, dirt, and boarded-up buildings. At least the food was good.


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