Skip the Auto Plant, Obama and Mitt

Cars Aren’t Detroit’s Future—Or Even Its Present

We hear so much about presidential candidates–and so little about life in the states that elect them. In “Beyond the Circus,” writers take us off the trail and give us glimpses of politically important places. Today, Michigan.

When people used to walk the streets of my hometown of Detroit, they knew exactly where they were. They were in Hitsville, the home of Motown Records. They were in the Motor City, the auto capital that put the world on wheels. They were in union country, a workingman’s paradise, one of the ventricles …