Ellen Creager: "People in other countries basically think of Detroit as a ruin."
Local globetrotter Ellen Creager, a Free Press reporter since 1983 and its travel writer since 2003, now faces new challenges when she's overseas.
Traveling in Ireland and England this week, I found that this was the first foreign trip in my 11 years as travel writer where the mention of my hometown brought so much sympathy and judgment. . . .
I can see the worldwide reputation damage that the past five years of hard times in the Motor City has done.
All those pictures of decay. All those dire headlines. People in other countries basically think of Detroit as a ruin.And if you travel, you are going to hear about it. . . . They have seen the pictures of Detroit on TV. The pictures are not pretty. . . .
So much misinformation. Where to start?
Creager, who lives in Grosse Pointe ("the dinky suburb that nobody abroad has ever heard of"), got a familiar reaction Saturday at a coffee shop in Ennis, Ireland:
The clerk predictably asked where my home was. Michigan, I said. Near Detroit.
He looked a bit alarmed. He said he watched a television show set in Detroit. It was called “Hard Core Pawn.”
Oh, no.
That show does not put your city in a positive light, he said with concern. It looks like a pretty rough area.
