The word “detritus” means the waste or debris of any kind, especially that produced by some organism or agent.  It also suggests something cast off, left behind; the remains of something useful.  Philologists, academics who thrill at the history and genetics of words, would find lots of close semantic cousins between detritus and Detroit.

Many great cities die a slow and noble death as time passes them by.  Detroit never had the chance for a glorious waning into history; it suffocates from a lack of hope, and that lends a blackness to the decline.  Detroit is a leperous city: dying an ignoble death, quietly shamed when its patrons ignore its bleeding brick and mortar.  Buildings don’t crumble in Detroit, they rot.

Like a widow’s wedding dress, streets named “Chrysler Ford” echo a happier day, when Detroit was the pounding heart of an industrious nation, the proud beacon light of a city on the hill.   Today, the light is long gone out.  The proud hulks of old industry sit tomb-quiet and dusted with failure.  In the language of progress, “Detroit” has come to mean “the palace of the dead king.”