The Strait

Beautiful Wasteland concludes by wrapping together the work of the narratives of focus into a final discussion of Detroit and its contemporary relationship to water. Detroit in the second decade of the twenty-first century is constructed by many as a place of beauty and possibility, in need of discipline. This narrative can be seen prominently in the water crisis that played out in the city of Detroit in 2014 and emerged as are sounding global narrative about the divisions between “new Detroit” and “old Detroit.” As the story spins between governmental incompetence and corporation and a corporate enterprise, the message becomes clear: metropolitan Detroit cooperation is hastened and easy to accommodate when it most benefits metropolitan Detroit.