Over 140 economists, researchers, Michigan and Ohio state and local officials, business and non-profit leaders recently camped for two days at the Detroit Branch of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, to review--in ghastly, numerical detail--the economic and human toll of the collapse of the auto industry, and to vet any and all approaches to aid dislocated auto workers in response.

Overall, the atmosphere and information was grim: Huge job losses in auto-dependent communities, significant human and community suffering, and maddeningly small increments of opportunity for those that have been thrown out of work.

Despite all the gloom and doom, there was still a bit of wishful thinking in the air, that for me (as one working in Flint, Lansing, and Detroit, Michigan for 20 years) underscored the now bi-polar Detroit and auto community attitude towards its once-dominant, sugar daddy industry. 

While historically standing four square behind the Big Three and the UAW--and fighting valiantly for whatever was in their self-professed interests--the cold shower of having now lost more auto-related jobs over the past decade (600,000) than are left in the region (400,000) places Detroit (and similar places) business, civic and political leadership in a very conflicted position.

Half the brain is still rooting for another comeback, hitting the end of the bungee cord and industry freefall. The other half of the brain is realizing that, finally, maybe the years of talk of “diversification,” embracing new sectors, and riding new economic ponies, is not only necessary, it may have already arrived as a fait accompli.

Since the 1960s, when Michael McClure imagined Billy the Kid humping Jean Harlow in The Beard and Barbara Garson had Lyndon Johnson whacking Jack Kennedy in MacBird, it has grown obvious that actual people, often still among us, have become the grist of American playwriting. In one recent week alone, a musical opened by Michael John LaChiusa called First Lady Suite, featuring Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, and Mamie Eisenhower, along with a semi-fictional comedy by A.R. Gurney called Mrs.