Is the Motor City really ‘running on empty’?

Detroit is still headquarters of the nation's auto industry, the largest single manufacturing and retail business...

Feb 23, 2011

Has Detroit reached its tipping point? Is the implosion of the American auto industry a kind of man-made Katrina for the Motor City? Or will Detroit rise up from its ash heap of urban devastation and round a corner as adroitly and smoothly as a newfangled gas-electric hybrid?

Whether this city, once our most prosperous manufacturing hub and the fourth largest city in the nation (now it’s the 11th), ultimately will make a comeback is anybody’s guess. But to borrow a phrase from Mark Twain: Reports of its death are an exaggeration.

Detroit is still headquarters of the nation’s auto industry, the largest single manufacturing and retail business in the country. City leaders just need a better roadmap.

To continue reading this story, click here.