Grand Bargain: The Inside Story of Detroit’s Dramatic Journey from Bankruptcy to Rebirth
Thursday, February 5 | 1:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Bethany Congregational Church 556 N. Hope Avenue, Santa Barbara
VISTAS member price: $20; non-member price: $30
Presented by Gerald E. Rosen
The city of Detroit’s decades-long downward spiral landed in bankruptcy court on July 18, 2013. Recession, decaying infrastructure, crime, and competition from foreign automakers had hollowed out the city’s economic core. Indeed, Detroit was in such bad shape that Michigan’s governor appointed an emergency manager to take over the city. But even that was not enough to turn it around. By the summer of 2013, Detroit was flat broke. What would happen to a city that had no money and no realistic prospect for raising any? Detroit had only one sizable asset: a collection of masterpieces held by the city-owned Detroit Institute of Arts. And now the city’s creditors wanted to “monetize” the art by putting it on the auction block. Pundits around the world were writing Detroit’s obituary—and liquidation of the art threatened to become the exclamation point at the end. In his book Grand Bargain, Gerald E. Rosen tells the inside story of how Detroit was rescued and Detroit’s retirees were saved from taking devastating cuts to their pensions.