Tales of Two Cities from Michigan Notable Books 2014

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Charlie LeDuff returns to his hometown
to uncover what destroyed his city.  He beats on the doors of union
bosses, homeless squatters, businessmen and woman as well as struggling
homeowners.  What he reveals is a story of ordinary people holding the
city together with sheer determination.  Detroit: An American Autopsy is
filled with some of the strangest and strongest people this country has
to offer.



Tear-Down: Memoir of a Vanishing City by Gordon Young is another story about a city ravished by poverty and crime.  Gordon Young grew up in Flint.  After 15 years in San Francisco, he found himself interested in what was happening in his hometown.  What he found was a city that could once boast that it had one of the world’s highest per capita income levels, but is now one of the most dangerous places to live.  A city where an exotic dancer can afford a lavish mansion, speculators scoop up cheap houses by the dozen, and where arson is often the quickest way to improve a neighborhood.


~Pam