Detroit Rising

That was the front page of USAToday on monday, just before the Lions kicked the buh-jeezus out of the Chicago Bears.  I don’t know who made the inspired video above, but I’m going to find out.

Here’s my read. Detroit is Manhattan, circa 1977. Remember the headlines? “Ford to City: Drop Dead”?  New York was looking like some kind of post apocalyptic Gotham, descending into Mad Max territory. John Carpenter made a movie called “Escape from New York” that kind of captured the out-of-control feeling.

So that was then. The creative types were moving into SoHo, finding bargains, and sprucing up that very, very funky neighborhood. Fast forward two decades, and with help from some good administration and policing, and a reassessment of what the possibilities of the city were, New York became again a shining, prosperous, safe, magnetic center where everyone wanted to be.

Well, that’s happening now in Detroit.  City hits bottom. Impoverished but imaginitive creative types move in, transformation begins. The latest sign? Whole Foods is moving in to midtown, an area “.. reportedly a magnet for young people and small businesses.”

What’s this got to do with Climate Change? Everything. The transformation that will solve the climate crisis is  the very same one that will transform our economy from the bottom up. And Detroit is bottom floor, ground zero.

Many people still don’t get it, but Michigan was the number one creator in the US of new jobs in 2010 – largely due to an aggressive pursuit of renewable energy and green jobs. (that was before the tea party “we can’t compete with china let’s throw in the towel” defeatist anti-greens took over the governor’s mansion. They’ll try to slow progress, but they can’t repeal the laws of economics)

From the USA Today article: 

And Detroit is becoming an environmental leader.

GM’s Chevrolet Cruze Eco is the highest-mileage gasoline car available, matching highway mileage ratings for small diesel cars. Ford converted a factory in nearby Wayne, Mich., that once made big SUVs to make Focus compacts and, soon, some hybrids and electric vehicles. Chrysler will build in the USA high-gas-mileage, four-cylinder engines for a line of cars developed by its majority owner, Fiat.

“The image change for Detroit in the last three years probably has been more than any of us in the industry anticipated,” says Jesse Toprak, vice president for industry trends and analysis at TrueCar.com, a car pricing and research company.

Not long ago, the auto-buying cognoscenti disdained Detroit and favored foreign brands. That attitude is uninformed, Toprak says. Detroit cars, overall, are “head to head with imports,” he says.

“The real quality gaps between domestics and imports have almost vanished,” he says, and considering “how much car you get for your money,” Detroit vehicles tend to be better values than foreign-brand rivals.

The Christian Science Monitor picks up the Electric Car Revolution story:

The mind-set is catching on. Global sales of plug-in vehicles are starting gradually, but expected rapid growth will push annual sales to 1.3 million vehicles by 2017, says John Gartner, an analyst with Pike Research in Boulder, Colo. He expects 2012 to be the first big year with a quarter million plug-in vehicles sold worldwide. At least a dozen new plug-in models from 10 automakers will hit showrooms in 2012.

Pumping a clean jobs agenda and greater energy independence, President Obama wants to put 1 million plug-in vehicles on US roads by 2015.

US plug-in sales will be just 61,000 next year, rising to 303,000 by 2017, according to Pike Research estimates. And Mr. Obama’s goal, says Mr. Gartner, probably won’t be achieved until 2016. Long-term growth projections by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) suggest dramatic growth: 5.8 million plug-in vehicles on US roads by 2020. The Institute’s “high” scenario shows those numbers could soar to 12 million by 2020 and 65 million by 2030.

Still, at this point, just 10,000 Americans have purchased an electric-drive plug-in vehicle – either a Nissan Leaf or a Chevrolet Volt, the only such vehicles currently available from major automakers. But that’s not a reflection of demand: Both GM and Nissan have long waiting lists and are sold out this year – and maybe next, says Bradley Berman, editor of Plugincars.com.

The article points out that 6 in 10 Americans still tell pollsters that they would not buy an electric no matter how high prices rise – (hmmm, sounds like the percentage who would have said they didn’t need a computer – in 1992….)  Anyway, forward looking execs note that 43 percent of the sample said they would go electric. There’s a market big enough to drive the transition.

Worth a look – video  below: