How immigrants are helping Detroit's recovery

A trainee entrepreneur'WE ARE proud of our Muslim community in Michigan,' says Rick Snyder, the state's Republican governor, sitting in his office in the grandiose Cadillac Place, the former headquarters of General Motors. Ever since his first state-of-the-state address in 2011, Mr Snyder has emphasised the importance of welcoming people from across the world to this large midwestern state. Thanks to once-plentiful jobs in the car industry, greater Detroit has the largest Arab-American community in America. Almost half the population of Dearborn, a suburb that is home to Ford Motor Company, is from the Middle East. Hamtramck, another Detroit suburb, is the first city in America with a majority-Muslim city council.Mr Snyder and Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, are making population growth a gauge of their efforts to revitalise a state that is slowly recovering from a 'lost decade' and a city devastated by the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. Between 2000 and 2010 Michigan lost nearly 800,000 jobs, income per head fell from America's 17th-highest to 39th, and residents fled. In the same period the...Continue reading
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