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Deserting Detroit?

Jack Lessenberry had a series of pieces looking at Harvard economist Edward Glaeser's recent comments in the New York Times Magazine, saying of Detroit that "There is no reason why it can't, and shouldn't, decline. Places decline and places grow. We shouldn't stand in the way of that." In the interview, Glaeser suggests that politicians should accept the reality that Detroit will shrink and that their job is to "Focus on the people, not on the place".

Lessenberry responds that had Detroit sprung up in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, or even in some part of the water-deprived American Southwest, one could perhaps agree but that in actuality, Detroit is blessed with water resources and a geography that makes sense as a city site.

Listen to Interview: Edward Glaeser from Michigan Radio
Read Men of the people in the Metro Times
Might as well also see Is once-scrappy Detroit heading for scrap heap of history? in the Toledo Blade (takes on The Onion's Detroit Sold for Scrap)
Read Detroit Can Learn a lot from London in Absolute Michigan (in case you missed it)