Oh What A Beautiful City

As my wife said in her last post, we’re looking to move locally in the next few months. Going through this process has highlighted to me how much I truly enjoy living in Southeast Michigan – and that, over the past ten and a half years, I have become a Michigander. I’ve lived in North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Ontario, but I consider Michigan my home.

Being a Michigander means more than drinking a Vernor’s and eating Better Made potato chips (BBQ flavor, of course) while making a Michigan Left on my way to a Tigers game. It means enjoying the four seasons, the changeability of the weather, and sunny summer days without humidity. It means finding beauty in the kind of buildings they don’t make any more while finding regret in the condition of many of those buildings. It means living in a place large enough to have all the advantages of a big city while living in a friendly place - where people will let other drivers cut in and those other drivers wave back in appreciation.

Sure, things aren’t perfect here in Michigan. Our political leaders of all parties have failed the state – how Michigan needs a strong leader like Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels! The city of Detroit is particularly dysfunctional, fed in part by those who use racial divisions for their own gain. And the state of our economy is well documented. But even given that, I don’t want to live anywhere else.

This week I had to drive down to Brownstown Township for work. The drive back to the office up I-75 takes you past the oil refinery and the heavily industrial area at the junction of the Rouge and the Detroit rivers. And then you reach the crest of the Rouge River Bridge, and presented to you from left to right is the skyline of the city of Detroit, culminating in the Renaissance Center on the Detroit River, the Ambassador Bridge, and the city of Windsor.

Last month we went to a performance of “Woodward Wonderland”, a celebration of Detroit’s holiday traditions performed by the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit. The opening song is the Christmas song “Oh What A Beautiful City.” Looking at the city of Detroit presented before me from the Rouge River bridge, I can’t help but think to myself, Oh, what a beautiful city!