And That John F. Kennedy Uttered The

Well, Here You Had A City That Was Selling More Cars Than Ever Before, That Had This Wondrous Music Being Created, That Was So Vital To The Labor And Civil Rights Of This Country, And Yet It Was Dying And Didn't See It, Except For Some Sociologist At Wayne State University Who Predicted That Detroit Was Losing Population By A Half-million By The End Of That '60s Decade, And That That Trend Would Continue Taking Away Its Tax Base.

And Then The Industry Itself Was So Cocky About What They Were Doing That They Weren't Seeing What Was Coming On The Horizon With Japan And Germany And Other Places That Were Building Smaller Cars.

So, I Mean, There's Still Vast Swaths Of The City That Are Suffering From A Lack Of Jobs And Poor Housing And Poor Public Schools, But They Are Building Momentum - You Know, Techies, Foodies, Artists, Musicians, All Coming To Detroit. So There Is This Vibrancy. You See It In The Newspapers Every Day - Some Story About The New Detroit.

Natural Politicians Are Skilled Actors, Recreating Reality, Adjusting And Ad-libbing, Synthesizing The Scenes, Saying The Same Thing Over And Over Again And Making It Seem That Theyare Saying It For The First Time.

I Look For Two Things When I Am About To Launch Into A Book. First, There Has To Be A Dramatic Arc To The Story Itself That Will Carry Me, And The Reader, From Beginning To End. Second, The Story Has To Weave Through Larger Themes That Can Illuminate The World Of The Subject.