What happened here is happening out there. (5)
Charlie Leduff's Detroit incorporates the ideas of life, tradition, corruption, escape, and really embodies the future and past of America. Leduff explains in his prologue how much he wants everyone to experience the city of Detroit. He believes that Detroit is the future of America. Through LeDuff’s life he had never really known what he wanted to be so he left home (an important idea in the American Experience) to travel the world and decided he would become a journalist. After becoming a journalist he returned home and found his old city in ruins. He hopes to show everyone how his old city is the inevitability of America and what the way of this life is and how it will spread to everyone and everything around Detroit. He says, “America’s way of life was built [there]” (4), which reveals that Detroit used to be a place of new beginnings and hope. Now it is a desperate place that no one wants to be and it was “...never that good in the first place,” (3). America is very close
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to becoming Detroit. Places like Detroit are already popping up all around, “...what happened here is happening out there,” (5), because no matter where you go you will come across more “Detroits.” America used to be a place where new things were made and thrived but has become increasingly corrupt. Our “traditions” are starting to lead us down a hurtful path and that our past and future is becoming clear but not positive. LeDuff wants everyone to come to Detroit to see how this is the reality and future of America.