Michigan Arts & Culture

Book aims to reframe outsider narratives of Detroit

Michigan Public | By Stateside Staff

Published March 16, 2017 at 4:29 PM EDT

Rebecca Kinney said Detroit's downtown area, which has seen a revival in recent years, only makes up about 5% of the city. What about the other 95%?

Stateside's conversation with Rebecca Kinney, author of "Beautiful Wasteland: The Rise of Detroit as America's Postindustrial Frontier."

How do we talk about Detroit?

In the 80's and 90's, the focus was on crime and urban decay. Detroit was the "Murder City." Today, the narrative is one of possibility and resurgence.

But both of those depictions were largely imposed by outsiders, and were, at best, incomplete.Rebecca Kinney explores the narratives of Detroit's history in her book Beautiful Wasteland: The Rise of Detroit as America's Postindustrial Frontier.

She joined Stateside to discuss her book. It explores the negative stories that have shaped the narrative of "Detroit's downfall" and the perceptions of the city's recent revival.

Listen to the full interview above to learn of narratives dating back to the Henry Ford days, as well as Kinney's thoughts on Detroit's downtown redevelopment.

This segment originally aired on Jan. 2, 2017.

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