Excerpts from Dan Shaughnessy’s Boston Globe column:
I come to you in praise of Detroit. That's right. I like Detroit. In fact, I love Detroit. I could live here. Really. …
The place is coming back, I tell you. It's a real city with a real downtown. It has real taxi cabs, four big league teams, and hard-working people who aren't afraid to eat red meat, drink brown liquor, or say, ''Merry Christmas." You can still light up a smoke in your favorite downtown bar without getting arrested.
The city's soul has been lost for a while, but Detroiters are determined to reclaim it. Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick says this is Detroit's chance to reintroduce itself to the world. He says this is his city's ''coming-out party."
No less than 10,000 volunteers are working with the Super Bowl Committee, and they are killing us with kindness this week. They're eager to answer all of our questions and quick to apologize for anything that's less than perfect. Several people told me they're sorry about the rainy weather. There was hail nearby yesterday. …
Given up for dead a few years ago, Detroit has survived and appears to be coming back the way Cleveland and Baltimore and Pittsburgh came back. But the Super Bowl has come back to Detroit, and some of us are glad to be here.
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