Name: How the American dream went wrong in Detroit
Uploaded: 2014-01-06T19:27:34.000Z
Duration: 22 min 40 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Well, this is a 1967 Pontiac GTO. It's got a 400 cubic engine and 360 horsepower, four-speed

Basic passive voice

transmission - so exactly the way it was built in 1967.

Meet Ken Grace, my guide to the muscle cars of Detroit. He had one much the same when

he was seventeen. Detroit's teenagers won't have the option

of owning a new Pontiac. General Motors has just killed the Pontiac brand - yet another

sign that one of the world's best known companies and its home town are in desperate trouble.

Back in the '60s and '70s you could see people in the city of Detroit walking the streets,

and the factories were full of cars and full of employment, some running three shifts.

It was an honour to say 'Yeah I'm from Detroit'. A tough city, a lot of issues, but we were

proud because everybody around the world drove our vehicles.

A city which worships the car, doesn't have much of a public transport system.

called the 'people mover', seems more for show than effect, but it does give you an

uninterrupted view of a city in decline. Once the murder capital of America, now businesses

are being killed off and residents have fled. Building after building vandalised or awaiting

the wrecker. Eerily too, the streets of motor city are empty of traffic.

The most striking thing about the centre of Detroit these days is how quiet it is. On

almost every street there are signs of urban decay and a sense of desolation. There's also

disbelief that the three big car companies could be in so much trouble.

Ford, which is in the best shape, recorded loss of $2billion in the first three months

of the year and that was viewed as something of a triumph.

General Motors, once the biggest car company in the world, will have to go into bankruptcy

to survive.There are no companies that are too big to fail.

If Lehmann's can fail with its 100 year history, I think GM can fail, and I don't think it's

When I moved to Detroit in 1999 this town was rolling in profits from the SUV business.

Everyone got bonuses that year, they even gave out free computers at Ford, and they

had a plane flying around town thanking workers for their great contribution.

I never imagined that in a million years for General Motors, the number one company

in the United States, to be in this predicament, no way.

This is not simply a story of another industrial town falling on hard times

and few know that better than Dick Purtan -- Detroit's veteran, top rating radio announcer

who was spinning discs back in the '60s. So was there a real energy

about Detroit?Oh yeah a big time energy. Remember in those days, Detroit would have been the

And then I have seen in the... what, 45 years that I have been here, it's gone from 5th

to 6th to 7th to 8th to 9th to 10th and I think currently we're the 11th rated market

Detroit became the emblem of American know how and can do, the capital of US industrial

prowess. But it had more. It had its very own high

But it had more. It had its very own high

energy soundtrack, and like Dick Purtan's listeners, the world

I was thrilled to be here because this was a real happening town. And one of the reasons

it was happening was two reasons, the auto industry was thriving, people were thriving

This is an historic city because of motorcars. Motown was adapted from the name, motor city

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a big

hit back then. She still belts it out, but has another stage

too, making law as a Detroit city councillor.You know it's a good feeling to have songs

that you recorded when you were twenty one, twenty two years old and then when you sing

them you can feel that young. You can think back and total recall to the day that you

Reeves started recording in Studio A at Motown Records. It became known as Hitsville USA,

borrowing a production style from the car industry.

And in our history, Berry Gordy worked at Ford Motor Company and he thought of running

a company as an assembly line. Once the doors opened, they never shut.

We started up with two tracks, two recording tracks. Went from there to four. Hitchhiker,

Stubborn Kind of Fella, Come and Get These Memories, Almost Like a Heatwave were all

cut with four tracks, and we grew from there. What would have been your favourite hit from

those days that you recorded in Studio A?Oh you can't pick one. We've had some wonderful

recordings and they're like children. Could you give us a burst of Heatwave before

you leave? Come on, a few bars.It's hard to do without the band and the girls but my favourite

part is 'sometimes I stare into space, tears all over my face. Can't explain

it, don't understand it. I ain't never felt like this before.' It's time to go.

Martha Reeves will be among those Detroiters celebrating fifty years of Motown this year,

but she's keenly aware that there's not much to smile about. She's watching her city run

out of gas and its once great institutions being junked.

I have been asked that question, how are we surviving the fact that half of the cars in

our city are foreign, that our cars aren't selling anymore. Our big three are considering

lay offs and buy outs and the industry is not what it used

A forced marriage with Fiat is Chrysler's way out of bankruptcy. The big daddy of them

all, General Motors, looms as the biggest potential disaster. It's closing plants and

desperately negotiating a survival strategy.

People who thought they had secure jobs, are

facing the reality that the wheels are falling off motor city. That's something that you,

you know you feel in your stomach every day. You know you're thinking about it. You can't

get it off your mind, you know? You would want for it just to be over, one

way or the other. Let me know something. Mitch Seaton started working for General Motors

thirty years ago. So what was the image of the company then?

I mean what did you expect if you got a job with GM?

That you would be able to retire, you know, with a certain amount of dignity, you know?

High wages, good benefits, you know. When we were children growing up in Michigan

or in a city of Inkster or Detroit, we always knew that that was the ultimate job to get,

because so many people drove nice cars and had nice homes.

Carmen Seaton also works at GM. Like many families, they've been the backbone of the

car industry for generations. We have so many people. I have four or five

aunts, I have two uncles, I have a sister, two brother-in-laws and actually

two grandfathers that -- both my grandfathers are retirees from the automotive industry.

We're at one of the many branches of the United Autoworkers. The guest of honour is Dick Johnston,

a veteran GM employee. There's a lot of love in the room for the

There's a lot of love in the room for the

committed unionist. Even so, high wages and generous health and pension benefits demanded

by the Union over many decades have been a factor in the car industry crisis.

When I first started, General Motors was really booming. Where I'm working at now in Ypsilanti

- there was 16.... 17 thousand people when it first started. It's gone from that down

to sixteen hundred people, which is a big drop from what it was when I first started.

In the '50s Detroit was booming and they built big monuments like the Spirit of Detroit -- strong

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How the American dream went wrong in Detroit

people

general

start

company