It’s difficult for me — to view the automotive industry, to follow the decline in Flint, Michigan (the city where General Motors was founded 100 years ago), to read today that Chrysler is filing for bankruptcy, to find out that Fiat is about to buy a controlling interest in Chrysler, to read in the local newspaper that people in Indiana should be concerned that the State of Michigan is giving substantial incentives to auto-related businesses to relocate to Michigan, to wonder how long that local newspaper will even exist, etc., etc., etc. — and to know what to say, how to react. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to see the future on such terms.

Such discussions, such decisions, such outrageousnesses exist in a space and place about which I know somethings about the ramifications, loss, and helplessness that visits so many lives. I know a little about Flint, about the wonderful photojournalist who took an early retirement and left a city and people he loved and to whom he was deeply committed, the devoted police officer who emailed last week to tell me he’s been laid off, or the squatter Keith Austin, who is, once again, gone (see: http://onesmallproject.blogspot.com/2009/02/im-taking-out-my-pencil.html).

These, to me, are “major casualties.”

We can see the world this way, our interest or curiosity can end there, in anxiety about the future.

I’m willing to say that the questions you ask — about industries, the future, recovery, major casualties — are just the sort of questions that we are trained to ask, educated to ask, expected to ask.

For two basic reasons, while I’m interested in such issues, I’m also looking into other energies.

First, EVERYONE asks these questions, everyone wants to “solve” the “big problems” of our time, we feel compelled to think at the level of policy, planning, the big picture. So, I say, maybe there’s space for someone, for me, to look at this differently. To think small, to get to know one other person well, to pay attention to that. Period. Second, real people are making their way in the most difficult of conditions. I’ve seen it post tsunami in Sri Lanka, post Big Three in the Rust Belt, post Katrina and Rita in the Gulf Coast. Local people, regular people, individual people find space to make a difference, get on with life, help others get on with their lives, dream dreams and act on them, have aspirations and follow them, believe in themselves, don’t wait for someone else to figure something out or to give something.

This, I believe, is a very good place to begin, with a small success story in Flint (see Adam above), Braddock (see John above), in Panama (Emelia), Camden (Michael), Sri Lanka (Rasika), all around the world such stories, these realities exist.

Such an approach does not argue against the sorts of big issues that you cite. We need organized first responders to natural disasters, unions to fight for workers, elected officials to represent the citizenry. At the same time, I’m interested in displacing or decentering some aspects of these relationships. I’m tired of waiting for Tim Geithner to figure it out, for Gordon Brown to figure it out, for Cristina Kirchner to figure it out. I’m tired of how important we’ve allowed them to become, even as I have experienced the difference that leaders can make in the most difficult of circumstances.

It is the unrecognized, unremarkable, unCNNable lives, these are the moments and todays in which I’m interested, and from which I am learning.

Whatever it means “to recover,” let it begin there.

I hope that helps.

If you want to see some of my thoughts about decline in Flint, Michigan, specific to what to do with something like 10,000 abandoned buildings, see:

“Deconstructing Flint” at http://www.geneseeinstitute.org/downloads/Deconstructing_Flint.pdf

In addition, this post at Archinect might be of interest:

“Compared to What?” (a journal of a 2006 driving trip, with students, to Detroit, Flint, Gary, south Chicago, East St. Louis, and Cincinnati) at: http://www.archinect.com/features/article.php?id=50579_0_23_0_C

Thanks again,

Wes

Joannah

http://easypowerpaint.com