Fist Bump To The D

"It's the hottest fires that make the hardest steel."

By now, you may have seen the new Chrysler 200 ad that ran during this year's Super Bowl. Even in the opening seconds, I immediately recognized the freeway bridges, green signs and gray cloudy winter skies of Michigan. As an exit sign bearing the name "Detroit" flashes in the picture, a rough ragged voice erupts and says, "I've got a question for ya," that gives a clear indication this isn't your typical comical Super Bowl ad or a Pure Michigan spot (I'm scared, where's Tim Allen?!).

It's real, it's gritty, there's no sun, no flowers, no gleaming glass skyscrapers, snow is flying in the air and piled up along the streets, shots of Detroit's skyline and industrial areas spinning past. The announcer asks abruptly: "What does a town that's been to Hell and back know about the finer things in life?" It starts to become clear that it's a Chrysler commercial, but yet so much more.

As the driver of the vehicle whirls you through the streets of Detroit, it finally ends with Eminem, the city's most iconic rap star, stepping out and walking into the beautiful and historic Fox Theatre. He joins a choir on stage (which has been singing along to the haunting backup music), and throws down the gauntlet that "This the Motor City, this is what we do."

It's an emotionally moving production, even if you're not from Detroit or Michigan. Many of the comments about this video include the words "gave me chills", "goosebumps," "best SuperBowl ad!," and other superlatives.  It's brilliantly shot, with glimpses of many of Detroit's sights like the Joe Louis' Fist sculpture taking center stage (not by accident, I imagine), The Spirit of Detroit Monument, a statue on the old Wayne County Building, a Diego Rivera mural at the DIA and the Penobscot Building, just to name a few.

It's one part car ad, three parts Detroit pride. I watched the ad go from 343 views on YouTube just after it aired on the Super Bowl to over 2.1 Million views at the time of this writing less than 24 hours later (most viewed video on youtube for Feb. 7th), and the blogosphere is lit up like a roman candle waxing poetic about it on both sides. It's undeniable that, even with the mass globalization of the automotive industry, and the shedding of hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is no larger concentration of automotive manufacturing know-how than what resides in Southeast Michigan. Nowhere else even comes close. It is what "we" do.

So what does this have to do with us? In Grand Rapids?

The World's View of Detroit

As much as we like to believe that we're different from the rest of the State, we are inextricably linked to Detroit and Southeast Michigan. Many of our largest employers in West Michigan rely heavily on the automotive industry in Detroit. Several of the largest jobs announcements in 2010 in West Michigan were for companies that will supply new technology batteries to the automakers. As much as we try to differentiate ourselves from the economic troubles of our brethren in the East, how Detroit goes, so goes the State of Michigan. It's difficult for the outside world to view the differences between West and Southeast Michigan. They see us as one in the same.

By the Numbers

The six-counties of the Detroit Metropolitan area have a population of about 4.5 Million, and create $200 Billion of the State's $383 Billion in Gross Domestic Product. It's estimated that there are over 580,000 tech workers in the Detroit Metropolitan area, with over 70,000 working in automotive R&D.  And get this, nearly $60 Billion (with a B) in trade crosses the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit every year, almost the same as the total amount of commerce between the U.S. and Japan. Frankly there would be no Michigan without Detroit.

And incredibly, it's seeing a comeback. Downtown Detroit is in the midst of a $1.2 Billion boom in development, and Blue Cross Blue Shield and Quicken Loans have recently moved or will move 4700 employees to downtown Detroit. Not only that, the U.S. automakers are paying back their government loans and seeing their best financials in years.

And to top it all off, the Detroit Metro Area was recently ranked 7th in the U.S. and 46th in the world for economic recovery growth from 2009 - 2010 by the Brookings Institution; in the Top 10 on a list that actually means business.

The People

Which brings me to the point of writing this: A city is more than just a bunch of numbers. Much like Grand Rapids, and even moreso, there are thousands of people in Detroit working tirelessly to reshape the city. To carve out a life, to create jobs, to reinvigorate neighborhoods like Midtown, Ferndale and Corktown, to add cultural amenities, to reintroduce mass transit, to build green space, to save the schools, to basically bring hope to a city that is going on over 50 years of economic devastation; people like Susan Mosey, Phillip Cooley, the peeps at Loveland Detroit, activists like Grace Lee Boggs, MOCAD, the artists behind the Heidelberg Project, Detroit's College for Creative Studies, and thousands and thousands more. Sound familiar? All the while not only fighting a system that is grossly dysfunctional, but fighting massive wealthy suburban counties that don't quite see the benefits of collaboration.

So while it's easy for us to say that things are better here in West Michigan, who are we to make things more difficult for them? Every time we tell out-of-state friends or ourselves that we're "not as bad as Detroit," aren't we taking a little of the fight out of them?  We get upset about one negative article in Newsweek, yet Detroit gets thrown in the Misery Index pile by the national press almost weekly. That's the people of Detroit they're talking about.

I once had a young African American tell me that he felt that when West Michigan people "bashed" Detroit, he took that to mean we were bashing the (predominantly African American) people of Detroit. Yikes.

A Commitment

While it's simplistic and naive to think that all of the issues that Detroit is facing can be summed up and solved in a 2 minute commercial, it definitely should strike some pride into you as a Michigander, or at least make you stop and pause for a moment to think about our "family" in Southeast Michigan. While it certainly may be difficult to help cheer on the slowly building momentum of a city that's hard to understand, the least we can do is to stop sabotaging their efforts. As a 40-year Michigan native born in Lansing, I've come to realize their battle is our battle. I actually made a New Year's Resolution this year (and I never make resolutions) to not say a bad word about Detroit. I even find myself defending Detroit now!

So if you find it within you, stick up for our bigger brother Detroit. Or plan a trip to downtown Detroit. And even though you'll still find it rough around the edges, you'll be amazed at all the changes going on. Or better yet, take a look at buying an American-made car, made in Michigan.

Fist Bump.

Goosebumps provided by Chrysler.