After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Time magazine called the city a “decaying, backwater river town.”
One wonders what they might say about us now. Unfortunately — or fortunately, because we’ve barely lived that label down — they’re kind of busy right now.
Time magazine is spending the next year in Detroit. They’ve bought a house, thrown a lawn party, and already written their first cover story about Detroit: “Notown: Hubris, racial tension, myopic politicians and the woeful auto industry brought this iconic American city to its knees. Here’s how the Motor City can rise again.”
I’ve long thought of Detroit as Memphis’ unofficial sister city. Both cities are shrinking in terms of population; both have high levels of poverty; both have a rich musical heritage. See the subhead above. With the exception of the “woeful auto industry,” doesn’t it sound sort of Memphisy?
Take this, for example: