Escape from Detroit: The Collapse of America's Black Metropolis by Paul Kersey

Author:Paul Kersey [Kersey, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2012-03-30T23:00:00+00:00

The GM Renaissance Center: A Monument to Black-Run America

Reading Steve Rattner’s Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry brought about a politically explosive revelation.

GM, the company that was bailed out with your tax-dollars through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), is headquartered in the GM Renaissance Center (RenCen), which at 73 stories is the tallest building in Detroit.242

Built in 1977 as part of the effort to revitalize the downtown area amid growing urban decay after the disastrous Black Riots of 1967 led to the abandonment of the city by white people (white flight had rebuilt Detroit in the suburbs, with the remaining Black population under Mayor Coleman Young busy bringing ruination to what was left behind), the Renaissance Center complex never lived up to its name.243

Built for $350 million, but sold for a mere $76 million to GM in 1996 – The New York Times reported there were absolutely no takers at $125 million - was an abysmal failure from the start.244

The Mackinac Center reports:

Indeed, the $350 million (in 1970s dollars) “Renaissance” Center was supposed to anchor Detroit’s revival. According to The Detroit News, on unveiling a plaque dedicated to the building’s private financiers, Henry Ford II (who conceived the Center) said, “Detroit has reached the bottom and is on its way back up.”

In 1996, the Center was sold to General Motors for just $76 million, a fraction of what it cost to build. It is difficult to overcome the message such a return on investment sends to entrepreneurs and other investors. The failure of the Renaissance Center to generate an actual renaissance in the Motor City should have undermined municipal leaders’ faith in the power of big symbols.245

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