This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Nornagest: Cut —
- The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, built to take up some of the bridge traffic, is the only underground international border crossing in the world, barring illegal hand-dug smuggling routes and the Large Hadron Collider.
The first exception which comes to mind is the Chunnel, and the Wikipedia page mentions two others in North America alone. It may, however, have been the only underground border crossing at the time of its construction.
"Detroit, Michigan is the center of America's automotive industry." Is it? In 1970 it certainly was. In 2009... well, I suppose you'd have to collect a lot of statistics about numbers of vehicles manufactured, numbers of employees, flows of capital, etc., but Smyrna, Tennessee these days seems a very plausible contender for that title, what with all the huge Nissan plants down there now. I'm not going to change the main article, but if anyone reading this were to research it in the name of accuracy, who could object?
jketchum31: Michigan is certainly the center of American-owned car manufacturing, and cars pretty much are Michigan's economy. The recent problems with GM and Chrysler have destroyed the economy here to the point where the state legislature is very near collapse in ways that many other states are not. Even if the Detroit area has been surpassed in numbers its cultural legacy and such still make it a viable contender for the role. If you feel like doing the research and you find Smyrna has more money coming and going, I'd change the text in the article to "...indsutry, at least in spirit."
jketchum31 Flint is not Detroit, but they deal with similar economic problems, as do the smaller cities of Saginaw, MI and its neighbors Bay City and Midland. Mind you, it's about 130 or so miles from the southernmost part of the Detroit Metropolitan Area to the north of Bay City. That's way too far in one direction to be acting like that's a suburb. If Michael Moore is going to be listed as from Detroit, we have a problem. I think we should either change the article to being about Southern- to Mid-Michigan in general, strike that line, or explain that Flint is basically Detroit's delinquent little cousin next door with similar problems but little proper economic connection.
