Jerry Herron
Jerry Herron
Jerry Herron is the dean of the Irvin D. Reid Honors College at Wayne State University . He was born in Abilene, Texas and received his PhD and MA from Indiana University and a BA from the University of Texas at Austin. He has written two books: Universities and the Myth of Cultural Decline and AfterCulture: Detroit and the Humiliation of History. He is also a The Detroit News writer...
exist people pretend problems urban
Americans don't like poverty. Americans don't like things old. Americans don't like urban violence. We have all the problems everyone else has that people like to pretend exist only in Detroit.
bowl hurricane katrina next super until
The Super Bowl is over, Hurricane Katrina is finished, there are no hurricanes brewing in the Gulf. This will be big until the next big event.
detroit greatest people realize success
But what people don't realize is that Detroit is the greatest success story in American history.
car city culture industrial invented love market modern motor
I'd love to see the city market its car culture, our automotive heritage. We invented the modern industrial world. We're still Motor City.
detroit percent population race says today
Everyone says look at what 'those people' did to my city. And race is always an element. In 1950, Detroit had a population of 1.8 million; 80 percent were white, 20 percent black. Today the population is 900,000 and those percentages have more than reversed.
abandoned city everybody failed famous likes longer united
Detroit's the city everybody likes to look at as a place that's dangerous, abandoned and economically no longer viable. It's the most famous failed city in the United States.
This is an interesting place with its own distinctive culture. It's not Chicago, it's not New York, it's Detroit--and you've got to like it for that.
global industry proud
This is a global industry we invented. We should be proud of it. We shouldn't disown it.