Kresge has invested more than $100 million in Detroit's transformation, funding a riverfront promenade, building greenways and backing incentives for entrepreneurs.In return, they get contempt. The Mayor can't accept somebody else getting some credit:
"Everyone talks about Kresge, Kresge, Kresge," the mayor said in an interview. "We're pleased with the support we're getting from them, but... Kresge is not doing this in a vacuum by themselves."A city executive is indignant that these outsiders won't just give them the money without strings attached:
"People want to know that their interests are being represented," says Marja Winters, the city's deputy planning chief and co-leader of Detroit Works. "Someone who doesn't live here can't accurately represent their interests."Presumably she'd rather just let people suffer before she sacrificed control, I mean, they've done right by the people so far, haven't they?
I once encountered a bum in front of a diner who told me he was hungry and hadn't eaten in days. I offered to buy him a burger inside. He said, "F**k you. Just give me the five dollars." I didn't. My advice to Kresge is to find something of real value to do with their money because Detroit is pathologically self-destructive and despite everything that has happened -- all the devestation and degradation and death of the past 50 years -- they are still not ready to change.
