Toby Barlow: "Detroit," Meet Detroit

You may know this already, but the one thing I've learned since I moved here is that many, if not most, of the people who identify themselves as being from "Detroit" have really no idea what Detroit is like. That's because they really live in, say, Novi, Warren, even neighboring Redford, and haven't explored downtown in years. Holding onto mythologies perpetuated by a hysterical press over the past quarter century, they cling to the belief that there are no grocery stores in the city (we actually have 115) and still ask me where I get my dry cleaning done (for the last time, I get my dry cleaning done at the dry cleaners.) They've been to the Fox, to Comerica Park, and maybe waited in line at Slows, but they haven't been to MOCAD, Astro Coffee, D'Mongo's, Good Girls Go to Paris, Le Petit Zinc, Supino's Pizza or any of the other places that have popped up over the past half-decade.