So, I mean, there's still vast swaths of the city that are suffering from a lack of jobs and poor housing and poor public schools, but they are building momentum - you know, techies, foodies, artists, musicians, all coming to Detroit. So there is this vibrancy. You see it in the newspapers every day - some story about the new Detroit.

I look for two things when I am about to launch into a book. First, there has to be a dramatic arc to the story itself that will carry me, and the reader, from beginning to end. Second, the story has to weave through larger themes that can illuminate the world of the subject.

It was a time of uncommon possibility and freedom, when Detroit created wondrous and lasting things. But life can be luminescent when it is most vulnerable.

And all of the big shots of the car industry are there, strutting their stuff. And that year, they're feeling especially good because cars were selling more than ever before.

Well, there is something beautiful about ruins. I mean, in one sense it's not that different from going to Rome and looking at the Forum. But it's changing. It truly is. I'm optimistic but skeptical.

Natural politicians are skilled actors, recreating reality, adjusting and ad-libbing, synthesizing the scenes, saying the same thing over and over again and making it seem that theyare saying it for the first time.

Well, there were several things. One was that the industry itself built in Detroit was abandoning the city - taking factories elsewhere, the corporate headquarters elsewhere.