The Michigan Historical Review Reviews

The Michigan Historical Review reviews Broke: Hardship and Resilience in a City of Broken Promises by Jodie Adams Kirshner. The book explains how the city of Detroit’s handling of municipal bankruptcy, while generally deemed a success, left a lot of people untouched. The review notes: “Kirshner’s pointillist approach follows several Detroiters identified by their first names—Joe, Miles, Cindy, Lola, among others—as they scrape out an economic existence in a city beset with high unemployment and little opportunity. Among other woes, the city’s housing market virtually collapsed during the Great Recession, and much of Broke follows Kirshner’s actors as they try to buy or hold on to a house facing tax foreclosure, vandalism, and heartless speculation by real estate vultures. The accumulation of detail creates a portrait of despair. At an ice cream parlor, workers dish up scoops from behind bullet-proof glass. A long-ago brush with the law that never leaves his record endlessly dogs the character Miles. Joe, a handyman, hires an ex-convict to help with some work and 'the man agreed but told him robbing houses and selling drugs paid better.' (101) 'Bankruptcy could not provide new remedies against financial problems,' Kirshner writes. 'It could not directly reverse the population loss, employment loss, or property value loss that contributed to the Book Reviews 199 shrinking tax base, nor could bankruptcy bring back lost federal and state support to offset pressures on public welfare.' (xix) That last point about the loss of federal and state aid is a key to the puzzle. “

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