President Obama has been zipping across the industrial Midwest lately, touting the budding recovery of the auto sector, and for good reason. His $50 billion investment in General Motors and Chrysler pulled them from the brink of collapse, potentially saving millions of jobs. At a GM assembly plant in Detroit last week, he test-drove Chevrolet's new battery-powered Volt (about 10 feet, after getting reluctant approval from the Secret Service) and swiftly pronounced the ride "pretty smooth." The TV cameras rolled. The crowd of autoworkers cheered, right on cue. Just like a campaign rally: everything was perfect. Except it's not. Obama, America's first urban President, was visiting his country's poorest and most populous majority-black city. But the urban crisis unraveling outside the plants wasn't on the agenda.
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