Laura Berman of the Detroit News asks why people are "pretending that things are worse now than they have ever been" in Detroit?
Statistically speaking, there is less violence proportionally to the population, than in the past. "And yet it feels true with every vivid reminder that Detroiters are living with, and somehow tolerating, an unacceptable level of violence."
One way to combat crime might be to stop mythologizing it by harkening back to a golden age of social harmony none of us can remember, Berman says.
Writes Berman: "Detroit will never pray, march nor talk its way into change. Speeches and outrage won't beat the real foes: Substance abuse, irresponsible, uneducated parenting, and the allure of the streets in a racially segregated city that gives many young people little access to what middle-class life looks like."
