Lake District

Given how much of a keen walker I am, it's always been a bit of a source of shame that I've never been to the English Lake District.  Well, I managed to rectify that omission this week just gone.  When a good friend said he was getting together a few of us to go the Lakes I jumped at the chance - especially when someone else does most of the organising!  

We stayed at a cottage in Chapel Stile in the Southern Lakes, not too far from Ambleside rented through Wheelwrights who appear to have cornered the market in holiday cottages in this area!  It was a good location and the cottage was lovely - a little bit dated in some of the decoration but big and with an excellent kitchen.  I only banged my head on the low beams once too...

The weather was a little variable but we managed to get to do some great walks - including about 90% of Crinkle Crags (got lost in the mist on the tops so called it off early) plus a trip along the Langdale Valley and out to Ambleside and also Grasmere and Keswick.  

Things that are probably commonplace for people who've been before, but new to me and that I recommend;

- Grasmere Gingerbread.  Simply yum and makes the visit to Wordsworth's grave especially fragrant!
- Sticklebarn.  Great pub with fab food run by the National Trust.  
- Bluebird Bitter.  From the award-winning Coniston Brewing Company - very tasty, especially when sampled at the excellent Britannia Inn.  
- And I even managed to get a little run in as part of my training for the Nottingham Half Marathon

I loved the fact that even a little stroll along the valley floor was stunningly beautiful and a little hike up would soon become almost alpine - I'll be back soon I think!

Jura Food

As you'll know from previous posts, I'm planning a trip to the Isle of Jura later on this summer. Obviously the wanderlust from my America trip hasn't worn off yet!

The real attraction is the island is the sense of self-reliance and independence and for me some of this is reflected in the decisions I'll make on what I want to eat and drink.  I'm going to be (wild) camping for a good chunk of the trip so I'll need to be smart about how I intend to re-fuel.  

Of course, this is all a pretext for me to obsess over which Trangia stove to take with me: my Trangia 27-6 UL or my mini-stove.  For the uninitiated, the Trangia is a Matryoshka-doll-esque cooking system with the pans, heating unit and other elements all packing down into one neat unit.  You can see a series of pictures here.  I love the simplicity and pretty-much unbreakable nature of the system and the smell of burning methylated spirits immediately makes me think of the outdoors.  On balance, depending on the rest of my packing, I'm probably going to take the larger system but we'll see!

There is only one shop on the island - Jura Stores - which since my last visit nearly ten years looks like it's changed from a fairly pedestrian outpost of Spar into a community owned facilitity: some background on this here.  This kind of community ownership model is becoming increasingly popular of course as groups of local residents fight to preserve local pubs, shops and post offices.  The range of food is very good given the remote location but it won't have everything thing I need so am intending to take some staple ingredients with me.  

I've been consulting a couple of good books: The Trailside Cookbook and Moveable Feasts both of which despite an over-reliance on powdered egg (bleugh) have given me enough ideas and possibilities that I need to explore of the next few weeks.  I've also got a couple of pre-made meals as emergency supplies - as you can see from the photo above, they're not exactly appetising in either appearance or taste...

DC

I've been in wintry DC (it's bitterly cold with a North Easterly wind off the Chesapeake) for a day and half now and I'm still behaving like a child in Disneyland - there's so much that I want to see and do it's hard to prioritise.  I have however had to dig deep into the depths of my battered and dirty rucsac to find some warm clothes - having been spoiled by t-shirt weather in Houston and Bentonville I suppose I should just see this as a useful acclimatisation process for getting back to Nottingham. 

I'm staying just over the Key Bridge from Georgetown so I've been making the most of the bars, restaurants and shops (some good Christmas gift opportunities) just over the river while spending most of the daytime in downtown DC seeing all the monuments, museums and sights.  I'd like to pretend that this is an extension of my Company Towns research topic (DC being the ultimate company town for government), but in reality it's a totally self-indulgent time for me to wallow in all the political and cultural things going on.  And I'm loving it! 

I started off the day with a Segway Tour of the major sights.  I was a bit sceptical of this - wasn't sure if it would be a bit corny or if I'd injure myself on the machine but I can't recommend it enough - huge fun and a great way to see the city.  We covered about eight miles in around three hours and it was much more fun than walking and enabled you to see more of the city.  It was freezing cold as you whizz along at up to 10mph (don't forget your gloves like I did!) but the sights make up for it.  

Roughly speaking the tour covers: OEOB, The White House, The National Archives, The Naval Memorial, The Capitol, The National Mall and all the museums, The Lincoln, Washington and MLK Jr Memorials, The Vietnam and Korean War Memorial and lots else besides.  Plus you get to do some "off-roading" on the Segway and enjoy some good banter with your fellow tourists.  

The Capitol Building - can't wait for my tour tomorrow

The Washington Monument looms over everything you see in DC

Vietnam War Memorial still incredibly moving even on a repeat visit

After that and a warming lunch I decided to check out the view across the whole city available from the top of the tower of the Old Post Office.  Apparently this building has been sold to Donalt Trump to redevelop as a hotel.  This'll probably be better than its current slightly sad incarnation as sort of shopping centre and dusty tourist attraction but my opinion of the bewigged one has gone down significantly following his unhinged election night outburst on twitter.  

I then went on to the National Archives where you can see the original Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights; along with a huge amount of other stuff.  I loved the exhibition about the Cuban Missile Crisis: it really illuminated something I'd only previously read about in books with contemporary documents, recordings and photographs.  The usual over-abundance of school-children only slightly dampened my enthusiasm for the place with its powerful sense of history.  

Finally (I was dragging my feet like a recalcitrant tweenager at this point) I popped into the Smithsonian Institute Castle to make sure that I'd identified all the places within the huge SI network that I wanted to see.  There's a great ten minute video (only slightly spoilt by being hosted by Ben Stiller) that outlines all the options so I've now got a clear plan for tomorrow.  

Need to get to bed now as I've got an early start for my tour of the Capitol tomorrow - can't wait!

Reflections on Election Day

(Warning, seriously geeky political post below.  Normal service (err, that's more of the same then...) to resume tomorrow).  

I'm safely in DC for my final stop before coming home and back to reality.  Despite probably the second worst hangover of the whole trip (see here for the day after the worst) I was incredibly excited to get to the nation's capital especially after such a great result for Obama and the Democrats last night.  

Thought I'd do a post looking at some of the election results that I saw some of in my travels and also look at why the Republicans had such a terrible night.  

I had a slightly odd election night - I spent it in Nashville which was a late addition to my schedule and was at a dinner at The Standard Club.  You can probably guess from the website that there weren't many members of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the house that night and I was the token liberal at the table.  I was meeting with Doug Tatum who is a long standing friend of the Roosevelt Scholarship and having read his book, 'No Man's Land' I was intrigued to be meeting him.  There were a few other people at dinner from a diversity of backgrounds and we had a good discussion about the election and business - but I think I was always on a losing wicket being 4-1 against when we got into the real political stuff.  Think I acquitted myself reasonably well however.  

I then moved on to the Fleet Street Pub.  I usually avoid these kind of 'British bars' like the plague but I'd seen that Drinking Liberally were having their election watching party there so I knew that I'd be among kindred spirits.  Obviously it was a totally phenomenal result - far better than my (amateur) predictions and a great night.  The atmosphere in the pub wasn't as electric as you might expect - there was a kind of resigned relief rather than anything else - people had been reading the polls (see below) and hoping for best and the result was a cathartic relief rather than anything else.  

A few of the races and initiatives I've been following;

- Michigan Collective Bargaining.  This initiative, which failed, would have enshrined in the state constitution the right for trade unions to collectively bargain.  Passing this initiative was a very high priority for the UFCW colleagues that I met in Detroit and I'm gutted for them - I know how hard they were working.  The only positive thing is that the status-quo is kind-of ok - ie unions are able to bargain with employers and no-one is actively threatening to take that away like in Wisconsin so fingers crossed that things muddle along.  

- Washington gay Marriage.  On a more positive note, I'm delighted that this initiative to legalise gay marriage passed in Washington.  From a purely ideological point of view I firmly believe in the right of any couple, whatever their genders, to marry if that's what they want, but one of my Servas hosts in Seattle was a gay couple so here's to Sara and Rebecca - many congratulations on your upcoming nuptials!  

- Minnesota.  Again a great result on initiatives - rejecting restrictions on voter participation and gay marriage.  See some thoughts here on my experience of the election day process - asking for more ID can only harm this.  And a strong return to office for Rep. Keith Ellison who was kind enough to host me for a day in Minneapolis - what a guy!

- Montana Senate.  For some reason I've always been a fan of Senator Jon Tester.  I first came across him in 2006 via Daily Kos and I've always been a fan of his plain-spoken plaid shirted image so I was chuffed to see that he retained his seat.  Having travelled across most of Montana on the train my admiration for his ability to retain what is a very rural seat (great quote here: A profile of Tester after his 2006 election described his as "truly your grandfather's Democrat—a pro-gun, anti-big-business prairie pragmatist whose life is defined by the treeless patch of hard Montana dirt that has been in the family since 1916") for the Democrats and promulgate a broadly progressive agenda has only increased.  

Now as to how Obama won and why so many people thought he wouldn't I've just got a couple of comments.  

1) This isn't new or original, but the strength of Obama for America's GOTV and "ground game" was obviously decisive.  And it looks like a laser-like focus on places like Cuyahoga County in Ohio (basically, Cleveland and its suburbs) paid off in spades.  

2) The revelation for me on election night was the amount of self-delusional thinking around 'skewed polls'.  A quick detour before we get into this.  Many people will recognise the concept of group think and the 'echo chamber' where you end up believing your original opinions even more fervently when you discuss it with people of similar views.  And I'm as guilty of this as anyone - I socialise and work with people of very similar views and so always come up with a start when I meet people who fundamentally disagree with my views and almost forget why I believe what I do.  And so it's perhaps not a surprise that I hadn't come across the idea of Skewed Polling which apparently had been a common discussion point amongst Republicans for the last six or eight weeks.  The basic theory is that the public polls (which had been showing small but significant leads for the President in all the swing states for the last couple of weeks at least) were oversampling Democrats and were based on a 2008 turnout model.  This was all total news to me at dinner on Election night but I was firmly told by the Republicans present that Romney was going to comfortably win and that the polls were all 'skewed' (classic group-think).  This line of thinking generated a whole industry of recalibrating the polls - eg UnSkewed Polls.  (As an aside, it should be noted that the polling companies (like YouGov, MORI etc) many no money (or make a loss) on political polling - they do it to create publicity and as a loss-leader for more lucrative commercial work - so they stake a lot of credibility and future commercial work on getting it right and have little incentive to do anything other than report the truth as they find it).  This belief in Skewed Polls is a great example of group think and somewhat delusional self-belief - great summary from a friend here.  

3) The Republican ticket from top to bottom was pretty poor.  Romney was robotic and walked into stupid own-goals over not releasing his tax returns.  But the real issue was the terrible Senate candidates.  Again, a well-worked theme so I'll just link to a couple of articles that summarise it well: Akin and Mourdock on rape and a more general summary

Phew.  Ok, stopping now.  In summary: Obama won because they had a good plan and operation; some good results on gay rights and for unusual Democrats; trust the polling data; Republicans are terrible at selecting candidates. 

Georgia On My Mind

(I promise the terrible punning blog post titles will end soon)

I'm in Jasper, Georgia staying the some contacts made through the Roosevelt Scholarship and I've been made to feel incredibly welcome - all you hear about Southern hospitality is totally true.  I arrived on Friday night sorry to leave Bentonville and North-West Arkansas but I've hardly stopped since so I've not had any time to feel sad about my trip nearly coming to an end.  

I'm staying out in Jasper, Georgia which is about an hour from Atlanta and is the home of the Georgia Marble Company - I'm in a company town without even planning it!  The marble from here was used to make the Lincoln Memorial which I'll be seeing in a few days.  The trainline to and from the quarry runs just past the home where I'm staying and I can hear a train clicking past as I type this. 

On Saturday we went to the annual Chomp and Stomp festival in Atlanta - a mixture of beer festival, running event, live music and lots and lots of chilli.  We were able to sample a lot (a lot!) of chilli and I also tried some of the beers from Sweet Water Brewery from Atlanta - I can recommend the IPA in particular.  It was a really warm and sunny day and I could have stayed from much longer, but we were on something of a packed schedule.  I really liked the atmosphere in the neighbourhood that the festival was held - a place called Cabbagetown - it felt a bit like Sherwood in Nottingham: lots of independent businesses, people really engaged in their community and some great green spaces - the kind of place that I like to live! 

People enjoying the early Autumn sun

That is a lot of chilli that's been eaten!

We had to dash off to make sure that we got to Stone Mountain in time.  This is an enormous granite monolith which would be impressive enough but it also has a huge carving of three Confederate commanders in the side to commemorate the American Civil War.  The surrounding park was quite Disney-fied but the mountain itself was pretty spectacular especially the walk down (we took the cable car up!) to ground level.  A great view of Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs.  

A not very good picture of the carving.  The white mound to the left is a man-made ski-run...

Today (Sunda) was a long trip again to see the Little White House at Warm Springs.  This was where Franklin Roosevelt went to get relief from the debilitating effects of Polio and ended up living and working here - it was whilst meeting local people here that he was prompted to develop progressive policies like the New Deal, rural electrification and the Public Works Act. 

A pretty humble house, even for the 1930s. 

The museum here is really impressive - telling a lot of the story of FDR and his work plus what his life was like down here.  You can also travel to the original springs and bathing area where FDR found relief and also prompted the research that ultimately led to the discovery of the vaccine for Polio and its virtual elimination.  I've always been a fan but today really opened up a different side of the man and his work. 

Tomorrow I'm meeting with Coca-Cola at the 'World of Coke' in downtown Atlanta - worried that my Diet Coke addiction might get out of hand once I'm left to roam freely in that place...

Houston Food

Just a brief post to talk about some of the amazing food that I consumed this weekend just gone.  I'm fairly sure that I've put on a lot of weight so far this trip and this weekend won't have helped.  Back into cycling and running when I get home I think!

In no particular order, we went to the following places with my capsule review alongside.  

Empire Cafe.  An excellent lunch and chance to catch up with Brad and Louise, nice shady patio too and what looked like a great strawberry flavoured soda for the kids.  

Hugo's.  Wow.  Just wow - what a great place.  A cool vibe, with a mix of couples, families and business meetings.  I had the Barbacoa which featured some of the tastiest lamb I've had in a long time and also enabled me to learn a new word - cilantro.  Oh, and the Oaxacan Rita margarita was excellent - a real smoky taste.    

House of Pies.  This was a welcome addition to the afternoon when flagging from a full day (with a two-year-old) at the Museum of Natural Science.  I can personally vouch for the Apple and the Texas Pecan Fudge looked suitably artery filling...


Rudy's BBQ.  This place was an excellent Saturday night choice - real rib-sticking stuff but unpretentious and laid-back.  You order at the counter and get a kind of plastic crate to load your meat up into - we had a mix of moist brisket (to die for!), ribs and sausage.  Plus the sides were excellent too.  You lay your own table with butcher's paper and get stuck in - highly recommended!

Finally, we went for a brilliant brunch at a Mexican place and I had the best virgin Bloody Mary I've ever had - if only I could remember the name of the place!  My Huevos Rancheros was phenomenal - perhaps second only to 'Kiosk' at the end of my road in Nottingham, as discussed here - but then I would say that wouldn't I!)

I knew that Houston had a rep for good food but I hadn't realised quite how great it was going to be - no wonder they eat out the most of all Americans!

The other surprising thing about Houston was how green it was.  We went for a walk in Hermann Park but even outside this the streets were very green and leafy - a function of the kind of neighbourhood I was in I suppose but even so.  

Five Hours in LA

Or, "Travelling for 15 Hours and Still Being in California".  

I left Yosemite early-doors to make sure that the rest of my day's travel got off to a good start - and glad I did as it was a bit of a marathon!  I drove for four hours across California - which was just a beautiful as the way into Yosemite although I took a slightly different route.  The only radio station I could get a reliable signal for played solely country music which was an interesting accompaniment.  Most interesting was the constant political advertising (both pro and anti) for Adam Gray - not a politician who had previously crossed my radar and running for a relatively junior position he certainly has provoked some serious emotions - the attack ads were really vicious and the responses to them no less trenchant!

Made it to San Jose safely enough (via a small detour to try to find a petrol station before giving back the hire car) and was very early for my flight to LA.  But to be honest I was grateful of the chance to just sit down and chill-out: I'd been either walking or driving for the last three days so it was nice to just do nothing.  

Flight was fine, if anything the internal flights have very quickly lost any glamour they might have had and are just a bit tedious now and I successfully negotiated LAX's huge number of terminals (and satellite terminals) to find the departure location for the FlyAway bus to the city's Union Train Station.   This was very cheap ($7) and very efficient - negotiated through rush-hour downtown traffic in about 40 mins.

So I ended up very early in the station ahead of my second Amtrak trip - all the way to Houston.  Had resigned myself to a terrible station dinner and sitting in some uncomfortable seats but happened to stumble across Traxx Restaurant which looked nice and so decided to treat myself to some proper food.  For less than £30 I got a two course meal with wine and the opportunity to sit in a very nice location whilst I waited for my train - eat your heart out Burger King!

Eventually I thought I'd outstayed my welcome so wandered over to see if the train was ready yet and was able to get on and make myself comfortable in my sleeping compartment.  I was taking the Sunset Limited so was hoping for scenery as good as that as I saw on my first Amtrak trip.  I was a little disappointed - essentially West Texas is a lot of cactus and desert and not a lot else - there was little in the way of settlements and other action that broke up the Montana scenery.  

One photo and I'm going to try to upload and video that I took on my phone - so poor quality but will give a sense of it I hope!

Eventually arrived in Houston and was picked up by my friend Brad.  Despite living here for most of his life, Brad had to look up where the train station was - and I don't blame him to be honest, it was basically a shed and one track - compared with the incredible art-deco and impressive stations in other cities, it's nothing at all that you'd notice if you weren't looking for it!  

Brad took me over to the house and it was great to see Louise his wife again and also meet two new additions to the family - Ginger the dog and Sean their two year old son who is a real star!  More to follow including how I've lived up to Houston's reputation as the city that eats out the most in America and my trip to an American football game - I know you're both looking forward to that Gary and Alex N! 

Amtrak Journey One

As I talked about here, one of the things I was looking forward to doing in America was taking some trips on the Amtrak rail system.  I've spent the last couple of days on the train from Minneapolis to Seattle as the first of two journeys I'm planning to make.  (The other is from Los Angeles to Houston so I expect it will be different in many ways).  If you like you can see more details of the Empire Builder route that I took on this trip. 

Arriving at the station in Minneapolis was a bit of an adventure in itself - the Americans haven't quite cottoned on to the fact that the advantage of train travel is that you can arrive and depart right from the city centre - the station is out in the middle of nowhere - not the most fun when you need to be there at 11pm!  Luckily my Servas host was kind enough (on her birthday no less!) to give me a lift out there.  There was the usual chaos that you come to expect at a station (itinerants wandering about, people missing trains etc, etc) with the added excitement of some unsupervised toddlers wandering about that I had to stop from exiting the station out onto the busy main road outside.  Never did find their mother. 

I had made sure to book a sleeper car and was very glad that I did when I walked through the 'coach' standard accommodation - it really didn't look like a comfortable place to spent nearly 36 hours.  That said, the 'Roomette' accommodation that I had been allocated wasn't exactly palatial, especially for someone who's 6'4"!  But the service that came with it was (as you would expect for America) excellent.  Dorothy was the allocated steward for our car and the adjacent one and she was fantastic - not least at being able to remember something like 20 peoples' names, destinations and dinner reservation times.  

I was pretty tired and the light wasn't very good, but this an attempt to show the size of the sleeping accommodation - bear in mind that I was standing half-in-half-out of the door in the corridor...

Having managed to get a reasonable night of sleep and shower in the swaying train bathrooms it was time to experience the food available.  It's all included in the price of your trip so I was going to maximise my opportunity...  It was an ok breakfast, a triumph of quantity over quality really but the highlight was sitting with three other random travellers and hearing their stories.  Over the four meals I sat with people from all over the US and also one intrepid traveller from New Zealand.  It was really interesting in particular to talk to some people from Charlotte, North Carolina which I hadn't realised was the second largest financial centre in the US after New York - and so has been hit very hard by the economic downturn.  

But the real highlight of the trip was just watching the scenery.  I didn't even leave my cabin to go to the dedicated viewing car as I could see everything I wanted from my seat.  I was sad that the length of day meant that it was dark when we went through Glacier National Park but the rest of the day was hour after hour of the relentless plains of north Dakota and  Montana - it's not called 'Big Sky Country' for nothing.  I found it hypnotically interesting just to watch it all roll by, the photo below doesn't really do it justice at all.  

And then every-so-often this would be broken up by the appearance on the horizon of a small hamlet or settlement (either based around farming or more recently in ND, oil/gas drilling) on the horizon and then the slow recession of that hamlet behind you.  Like I say, hypnotic...

There was also the opportunity to take part in a wine and cheese tasting which I couldn't pass up - you can see the selections here.  The day after that just drifted along and before I knew it it was time for bed and an arrival in the morning in Seattle.  Incredibly for a 36 hours journey we arrived in Seattle 25 minutes early and even better I was able to leave my bag at the station and wander into the city to check it out. 

Chicago

What a place - I've absolutely fallen in love with Chicago.  

From the moment that I stepped off the (efficient, clean, fast) 'L' public transport system at Damen Avenue in Bucktown I knew that I would enjoy my time here.  There was a buzz about the place that was tangible - shops, bars, restaurants, boutique shops, oh, and, people (unlike in Detroit!) going about their everyday lives.  I was made very welcome by my Servas host, Jeff and we went out and had a few beers in the local pubs.  Jeff is a 'Quant' at a hedge fund, but that didn't mean that he was loaded he was quick to point out!  It was nice to talk to him about the places that he had travelled to around the world.  

As I had a really early start and important meetings I obviously drank far too much so wasn't in tip-top form for my 6.30 start the following day.  When will I learn eh?  Stupidly enough I had to travel almost all the way back to O'Hare Airport as I was due to attend the Illinois AFL-CIO (like the TUC in the UK) annual convention which was at one of the airport hotels.  Luckily it was an easy ride on the 'L'.  I freaked out the team from the UFCW who had arranged my attendance by insisting on walking from the station to the hotel.  It was a total of half a mile so I told them that I thought I'd be ok...

The convention was really interesting - lots of great speakers including Senator Dick Durbin.  I was made out to be some kind of visiting celebrity which was amusing.  I also went along to one of the workshops on GOTV ahead of the elections here in November.  I was interested to see if there were similarities or differences this side of the Atlantic.  There were a couple of interesting tips that I might be able to use in either our Parliamentary or Local elections in 2015 but the most striking thing was the similarities - including the perennial problem of what to do with the big band of volunteers who only turn up on election day itself ask what they can do to help - the reaction from activists from both the UK and the USA was, "be here 6 weeks ago when there was real work to be done"...

I was then lucky to be taken out to lunch to Gibson's which is something of a Chicago institution and also to meet Jon Karmel a local union right lawyer.  It was great to talk to Jon about the history of the labour movement in the US and also the development of Chicago.  Linked to my discoveries in Detroit re corruption, Jon's take was that although there have been question marks over the conduct and probity of the various members of the Daley family who have been Chicago leaders, the overwhelming focus has been on delivery of projects and initiatives - yes there might have been some greasing of some palms somewhere but fundamentally the public improvement works actually happened on the ground.  Certainly the city is night and day vs Detroit so something has gone right along the way! 

I did a bit of sightseeing in the afternoon but I was keen to get back to Jeff's place in time for the first Presidential debate.  I'm sure that people who are interested have watched the highlights already, but I was hugely disappointed with Obama's performance.  Hesitant, stumbling and willing to let Romney walk all over him.  As I said here this could be the turning point of the election and I don't think I'm alone in that analysis.  The second debate is on 16th October and the President is going to have seriously up his game.  

Thursday was a day totally dedicated to sightseeing so I covered a lot of ground.  First thing I went on an architectural boat tour as recommended by my good friends Dan and Josie - it was absolutely brilliant!  So much history and development in this city and the guide was excellent at drawing it all together.  Just a couple of photos below, including one of my all time favourite buildings, Marina City, not least because it features on the great album, 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' by local band Wilco.  

I also popped over to see Millennium Park and the outdoor art installation by Anish Kapoor (of Sky Mirror outside Nottingham Playhouse fame of course) - Cloud Gate.  (It's know by everyone as 'the bean').  A great atmosphere of fun and jokes, just one shot here - you have to spot where I am reflected! 

I've barely covered a fraction of what I did today - as I said, it's a brilliant city. 

Tomorrow (Friday) I go to the Walgreen's offices in Deerfield to meet with the team there - looking forward to that! 

Final Thoughts on Detroit

I'm writing this in Chicago airport: I was freakishly bumped to an earlier flight (vs my rubbish experience leaving Cincinnati) so I've got a couple of hours to kill.  I thought I'd jot down my final thoughts on Detroit - it's a place of contradictions and variety and I'm sure that I barely scratched the surface.  But hopefully I'm seen a bit more than just the 'usual' downtown areas.  (I don't know when I'll get a chance to post this so some of the timings might be off!). 

 

I went downtown for the morning the other day - mainly to post some stuff home (both from where I massively overpacked but also from things I've been given or bought along the way.  Top tip to scholars doing this trip in future years is to take less stuff that you think you'll need).  I took the opportuninty to wander around the city centre area.  As per my previouspost the overwhelming impression is one of emptiness - it's clean and feels safe and has all the infrastructure (roads, buildings etc) of a much larger and busier city than it is now but there's simply no-one around!

I stumbled across one of Detroit's 'Urban Gardens' - this one was sponsored by Compuware, one of the local employers and I spoke with the people seconded from the company to staff the garden.  One of them was a long term resident and told me that 15-20 years ago it was even quieter than now - he could have laid down in the road beside us for 15 minutes and nothing would have happened - no-one would be there to either tell him to get up or in his words, "no-one would even be around to try to take my wallet". 

They also filled me in about a couple of names that have consistently come up in coversation - Matty Moroun and Phil Cooley.  The former is a local landowner (he owns Michigan Central Station and also the bridge and tunnel over to Canada - more on him later) and the latter a local businessman and self-promoter.  Both divide opinions, shall we say...  I ate dinner that night at one of Cooley's restaurants - Slows BBQ.  The food was ok, not as great as I'd been led to believe but the place was totally packed to he's obviously doing something right. 

Talking of food, and being a huge Man vs Food fan I couldn't go to Detroit without sampling the delights of a Coney Hot Dog - some info on the backstory here.  I plumped for what's supposed to be the more 'authentic' of the two rival restaurants and can confirm that it was qutie an experience - the mixture of mince, chilli, hotdog and raw onions will stay with me for quite some time...  I shied away from one of Adam's volume challenges on this ocassion - another chance will present itself I'm sure. 

I was due that afternoon back at the offices of the UFCW where their Secretary-Treasurer had promised me that he would show me the political offices of the local Democratic Party.  For a political nerd like me this was obviously very exciting, not least because I'd be able to look at lots of maps of different Congressional Districts...  The office was very much like all the Labour Party committee rooms I've been in: slightly messy, lots of junk-food, assorted literature and posters along with a hardcore of activists phone-banking and stuffing envelopes.  Probably the best part of the visit, apart from the collecting of much literature and bumper stickers (yes, I've got one for you Rory!) was when my host, Rick, took me on a short drive to some of the local neighbourhoods. 

I'd already learned that Detroit's not all decay and disorder and there are some pretty acceptable places but where Rick took me was totally unexpected.  Firstly for Nottingham readers the district of the City rejoices in the name of 'Sherwood Forest' and especially for Jane and Brian if they're reading this it is usually just know as 'Sherwood' and is one of the more desirable places to live in the City.  Some things are the same the world over, eh...

As you can see from the photo below the properties in this neighbourhood are pretty desirable - 5+ bedrooms and lots of big gardens.  Rick told me that places here would typically sell for $150,000 - and an equivalent place outside the stigma of the city's boundaries (but less than a mile away geographically) would be around $400,000!  (This compares with the place I was staying where a three bedroom Victorian semi-detached would set you back about $30,000...). 

I picked up in the campaign office an attack leaflet critisising 'Mad Moron' (sic).  Although it wasn't explained, I assume this was directed at Matt Moroun (as above).  As well as consistently delaying redevelopment proposals for the Michigan Central Station Mr Moran is also the monopoly owner of the bridge and tunnel to and from Canada and also of all the Duty Free Shopping concessions.  When I was given a sample ballot (it's 4 pages) for the upcoming November election I was surprised to see a Referendum (called a 'Proposal' here) essentially designed to make it much more difficult for an additional international crossing to be created.  When I was in the UFCW offices I got the team to explain this.  Essentially it looks like Mr Moran has used his considerable personal wealth to get onto the ballot (and hopes to pass) a proposal to protect his monopoly on the international crossing business.  The fact that the Canadian government would have paid the costs of a proposed new bridge and it would bring additional revenue and business through Detroit doesn't seem to be a factor in his thinking.  An interesting local political dynamic. 

On my last day in Detroit I planned a quick visit to the Henry Ford complex out in Dearborn.  This comprises of several museums and exhibitions but the main focus for me was the Rouge Factory Tour - a chance to go round the actual Ford factory that's currently making the F150 Truck.  The Dearborn complex is vast - a whole town dedicated to Ford and all things car related.  It used to be much bigger and was on a significant decline until the mid-naughties when the current leader of the company, Bill Ford made a bold investment to tranform the plant into a green oriented and future facing operation - investing around $2bn in the site and its future.  The actual tour of the factory was incredible - you walk along a kind of gantry where you can see the trucks being made, production line station by production line station.  Some of the workers acknowledged our presence and gave us a little wave - some others just carried on doing the same repetitive work (as part of a 4 day, 10 hours a day work-week).  There was a real pride in the quality of the work and the combination of sophisticated robots and real people was interesting to see.  I also liked the fact that at various stations the sophisticated manufacturing process was reduced to a bloke picking up a lump of plastic and banging it into place with his fist - percussive maintenance is always a winner!

My final thoughts on Detroit: what I originally read about on my pre-trip research as a concept of 'Planned Shrinkage' came up time and time again here in even the most casual of conversations with people - "the city's too big we need to downside"; "the city needs to grow its tax base we're too big"; "we can't keep the city this size".  All of the people I met were passionate and committed advocates for the City and they all knew that it made sense to shrink and try to grow back.  This wasn't at all what I expect to find so glad to have had my assumptions challenged.