Detroit is No Longer a City

There’s an old tale from Russia about an advisor to the Empress—one Grigory Potemkin—who, eager to impress her, constructed an elaborate series of fake villages up and down the Dnieper River. As her boat passed by their wooden facades, attendants would strike them, cart them further downriver, and erect them again. The tale is apocryphal, of course, but the concept is now known as a “Potemkin Village,” a false facade of prosperity masking nothingness.

Downtown Detroit has become a Potemkin Village.

It isn’t a “real” place anymore. It’s more of an idea, a concept, a liminal space. Sure, the buildings are real, but they’re hollow—both literally and figuratively—balloons occasionally filled with the hot air of exhaled breath. A rentable city, a big pavilion available for events that crave association with classic Americana, like the NFL Draft.

Took a walk downtown. Empty on a Friday night. Drawn to a highly rated Greek restaurant by a Google profile showing classic Greek diner aesthetic, old-world kitschy charm, red and white tablecloths, that sort of thing. Walked in and spit took—it’d been yassified! The walls were now millennial gray, the tables sparkling white, the speakers playing R&B.

We were one of only two parties in the place, practically empty on a Friday night, right in the middle of downtown. The food was good, but I got sick the next day. Too much grease, too much ouzo. My body rejected the new Detroit as something indigestible.

Outside the restaurant, walking the street—few citizens, if any, but plenty of cops. Cops on horses, cops on cars, cops on foot patrol. Outdoor metal detectors on the sidewalk. Asked an officer, “Why don’t people just sidestep it and walk on the other half of the sidewalk?” He shrugged his shoulders. A portable police tower loomed from down the street, raised up to full height with bright lights and cameras in every direction.

At least when Potemkin made his fake villages, he forced his uniformed men to dress like peasants to give it the illusion of reality. Detroit fills the downtown with uniformed police officers, like extras, to give the sense of activity just as much as security. There were more cops than people downtown, but on a visit to the rougher neighborhoods in the outskirts, I didn’t see a single one.

Corktown was also strangely empty, even the day before the draft. Wide paved streets with only a few cars on them. A fancy hotel, the menu giving nod to all manner of Detroit tropes and aesthetics. Ordered up the key lime pie, expecting it to be an actual slice of pie. What arrived was some sort of deconstructed pie in bits—the pie itself and shards of crust and whipped cream spread across the plate haphazardly. Hollow, deconstructed, deflated… just like the city.