"It's all one big Detroit," my friend Warren said.  At the time, I believed him.  I hadn't traveled very much at the time - we never went on vacation and I'd never made enough money to leave the house, let alone the state.  He'd spent part of his 20s in Spain, and had extensively toured the US and most of Europe, with a few stops in Australia.  If he said it's all one big Detroit, I had no reason to doubt him.

Looking back seven years later, however, I beg to differ.  My first major city outside of Detroit was San Francisco.  It's a city that the US opened to the world, the best of culture, natural beauty and chocolate (yes, there's incredible chocolate; it's the home base of Scharffen Berger, Joseph Schmidt and E. Guittard, not to mention Ghirardelli).  I've had cheap sushi, luxuriant bubble baths, my first ever look at the ocean, snake soup, daylong walking trips through the center of town, fine Asian art, book wanderlust, the opportunity to look at a museum-quality tattooed skull... everything I ever wanted is within seven square miles.

My next major city was Toronto, one of those places that I had only understood in personal assumptions.  It's hard to remember that Detroit is a border town, and probably harder to keep in mind that Canada really and truly is a foreign country.  Before I went, I knew that Toronto was the home of the Hockey Hall of Fame and the stage for Kevin Quain and the Mad Bastards, and nothing else.  Turns out their chocolate is terrific (go to Soma in the Distillery), the traffic north of the Annex is terrible and the city is rich in history and fantastic Chinese food.  the beaches are just lovely, too, not only for the view of Lake Ontario, but also for the people.  I think I heard 14 different languages, each with their own pitches and utterances.  I remember thinking the varied ethnic makeup was strikingly like that of San Francisco.

I've been to New York as well, but not long enough to really absorb the place.  Not that anyone could - the second largest metropolitan area in the US in terms of population, the marquee city of the nation and one of the world's most revered places, a hotbed of art, entertainment, sports, medicine, finance and life itself.  Being in New York is unlike being anywhere else.  Meals were inexpensive and top-notch; parking was expensive and hellish.  The buildings are tall but with a sense of human scale - I was always aware that people made this place happen, and the idea of Providence making it great was laughable.  Moreover, it was strikingly beautiful, in an austere Greek-column-and-Classical-Roman kind of way. 

So what's wrong with Detroit?  I've lived here all my life - or rather, I've lived nearby all my life.  No one with any money whatsoever lives in Detroit unless they're trying to make a fashion statement.  Detroit used to be a great city - 2 million people, a thriving manufacturing economy, well-heeled citizens who contributed by means of buildings and works of art.  Underlying all of this, however, was a very angry black population whose rights had been reduced to bare basics and whose communities were frequently gutted in the name of "progress".  The Detroit Police Department was founded in 1863 in response to a race riot; another race riot happened in 1943. The Hastings Street neighborhood was demolished for a freeway (as was Chinatown; all ethnic minorities have been historically dismissed with equal indifference), and black churches were intimidated into frustration.  The riots of 1967 were the most visible sign of a century of tension.  That tension still exists, but not as a struggle within the city. Today, the city v. suburbs battle plays out in grand manner during every county commissioner meeting.  We don't label it "race relations" anymore, but the truth is Detroit is 88% black and the suburbs are over 90% white, and that this population shift has been continuous for the past 50 years.

So much for everyone getting along.  The shame that Detroit possesses, however, shouldn't get in the way of fixing the beauty or securing the positive history that still pokes through.  Detroit is the oldest American city outside of the original 13 colonies, founded in 1701.  We have Fort Wayne, which is open to the public, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the newly revamped Detroit Science Center, a renovated Campus Martius (named after the other Campus Martius in Rome, a city center reserved for military parades and monuments), international music festivals and Eastern Market, one of the world's largest open-air markets.  We are one of only four US cities with teams in every major professional sport, and three of those teams actually play within Detroit's borders.  Our public art includes the famous Joe Louis fist, an Alexander Calder sculpture by the courthouse, monuments to Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac (the city's founder) and Johannes Gutenberg and the Heidelberg Project.

Detroit, however, isn't San Francisco, or Toronto, or New York, or like many other major cities in that it is rather unmanageable to visit.  Detroit sprawls for over 135 square miles, smaller than Toronto (which also boasts 2.7 million people), but much larger than San Francisco (808,000 people, 46.1 sq. miles) with similar population.  Also unlike all of the above mentioned cities, there is no green space, mass transit is a joke or a slur depending on the day and the crime rate is high for a population of this size.  If you want to leave a bad area of a large city, you usually hop a bus, or hail a cab, or sometimes walk very fast.  In Detroit, the concept of neighborhoods is illusory in most cases, and cabs aren't available unless you call ahead.  Much of what makes a city worth seeing is outside of Detroit as well - the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village are in Dearborn; the zoo is in Royal Oak; the modern art museum that everyone respects is in Bloomfield and the state parks are in Clarkston, Rochester, Romeo, Grosse Ile... everywhere but Detroit.  The city's very visible blight issues are nothing to be dismissed, either, nor is the "regreening", the subtle takeover of abandoned property and vacant lots by scrub trees and overgrowth. 

I want to believe my friend when he said that all cities were different in the same way.  I want to believe that Detroit can be reclaimed.  I want to see the city's flaming jewel that resides somewhere here waiting to be found.  But I don't know what this will take.  I don't know what makes Detroit unique because I only see it in tatters. My friend knew that every city has the same potential to slide into Detroithood and abandon its own people, but I know now that some cities are just different.  Is different better?  Or is different only different?  Detroit may someday get the chance to find out.