Early this year, John Patrick Leary, a professor of American literature at Wayne State University, published a story in Guernica called "Detroitism" about, primarily, the two competing journalistic and artistic narratives about the Motor City.

There’s the Detroit Lament, which he describes as an examination of the city’s decline that is mostly told through the examination of physical spaces. You may have heard it referred to as "ruin porn." And there’s the Detroit Utopia, stories which purport to show a new way forward for the city, be it through urban farming, $100 homes or bicycling. (Utopian depictions of Detroit, Leary noted, tend to involve young creative white people.)

Leary [...]

"According to urban planner Richard Layman, a long-time chronicler of new restaurants’ relation to shifting neighborhood demographics, Thai eateries are generally among the 'second wave' of retailers to set up shop in an up-and-coming part of town. Mexican, or Tex-Mex, usually comes first, in Layman’s view. But Thai is an increasingly prevalent indicator of change, he says." —Understanding gentrification by new restaurants. (We presume the Mexicans take over the leases when the Chinese plexiglass-window places close up; see also Williamsburg, 1996.)

You know when you’re in a panel discussion in New York and the topic turns to gentrification, and the audience gets very quiet while everyone prays there won’t be some guy who stands up and says something excruciating? L. J. Davis was that guy.

Davis, a writer whose career was long enough that a lot of people forgot who he was for stretches along the way, died last week at 70. He wrote four novels in the '60s and '70s and, over a longer span, produced a substantial body of cranky and annoyingly accurate journalism. (A Harper’s article that essentially called the 1987 market crash won him a [...]