As goes Detroit, so goes Windsor.
That sense of unity on economic development, tourism and image explains why business and political figures across the Detroit River "are leading a rallying cry around the globe to trumpet the strengths of Windsor-Detroit as a still-strong, two-nation destination," as Alisa Priddle writes in the Free Press.
Since Detroit filed for bankruptcy in July, Windsor’s leaders have worked to reassure nervous investors and tourists that it’s business as usual in Detroit and that the city is more vibrant than in years. . . .
Windsor leadership is working to debunk myths that a broke city has ground to a standstill, that downtown Detroit is dead and that the tunnel between the two city cores has also closed because of the bankruptcy filing.
"We need Detroit to do well," says Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis. "We'll do the best we can to help."
Priddle talks with Mayor Eddie Francis and Sandra Pupatello, CEO of Windsor/Essex Economic Development Corp.
“We need Detroit to do well,” said Mayor Francis. ". . . We’ll do the best we can to help from our side.” . . .
“People in Detroit don’t realize we use them in our pitch every day,” said Pupatello, the former Ontario minister of economic development and trade who left politics and now promotes development for the Windsor area. “The Windsor-Detroit corridor is our lifeblood, and we have championed that and still do. . . .
“It’s like protecting your best player on the ice,” said Pupatello. “There is no question the fact we’re nestled beside Detroit is a big boon for us.”
Two weeks after his neighbor's bankruptcy filing in July, Francis attended the World Police and Fire Games in Belfast, Northern Ireland to support Detroit's bid to host that major event in 2021.
Another bit of cross-border harmony appears this weekend in The Windsor Star, where columnist Chris Vander Doelen comments on Kwame Kilpatrick's downfall by noting that "whatever hurts Detroit or slows its economic activity does the same over here."
-- Alan Stamm
