The Lights Are On in Detroit.
With 65,000 new streetlights, the city sends a message: Its O.K.
to go out after dark. Restaurants feel the glow. So do schoolchildren.
' Just before the holidays, on a dark street a few blocks from downtown, a group of public officials crowded onto a makeshift stage before a shivering crowd, flipped a big switch and the last of this citys 65,000 new streetlights blazed on.
For years, urban decline here was encapsulated in headlines about Detroits lights going out. Nowadays, tales of the citys slow recovery tend to focus on plucky hipsters from Los Angeles or Brooklyn colonizing abandoned spaces, opening pickle companies or tilling little urban agriculture plots. Glossy magazines acclaim Detroit as the next Berlin; never mind that Germanys reunified capital has always floated on a bed of cushy federal subsidies.
Lets hope that if anyone writes a history of Detroits rejuvenation, a chapter is devoted to the lights returning. Like picking up the trash, fixing potholes and responding to emergencies, these efforts signal that no matter where you live in Detroit, you are no longer forgotten that government here can finally keep its basic promises.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/arts/the-lights-are-on-in-detroit.html?