America on the road to perdition

James Doran drives from Wall Street to Detroit to discover how the American Dream turned into a nightmare

The day President Bush finally signed the $700 billion bail-out Bill to rescue Wall Street, none of Minas’s customers showed signs of joy or relief. ‘No, they all said it’s going to get worse before it gets better. And they know what they are talking about. So watch out.’

Minas came to New York from Greece almost 40 years ago to follow his own dream. ‘I think the young people today, they do not know what is “The American Dream”. Unfortunately your generation has always had it easy so it’s scary for you now. But maybe this will make you realise how you need to act with money. Not always credit cards and loans, but making money. America needs to learn this.’

Indeed, Americans are the poorest savers and the biggest borrowers on earth. So it is no surprise that their consumer-led economy ground to a halt once credit markets dried up. Taking Minas at his word, we withdraw cash from a nearby ATM and vow not to use credit cards all the way to Detroit. With Wall Street to our backs, we pass through the Holland Tunnel and into Jersey City, New Jersey. Although Manhattan is only a couple of minutes behind us, the change in scenery and prosperity is immediate.

The sides of ‘Routes 1 & 9’, as this single road is called, are lined with abandoned factories and run-down motels. In the parking lot of a truck rental business, a dozen Hispanic men huddle together, waiting for day-labouring jobs. We are in another world.

Interstate 80 runs some 2,900 miles from Teeneck, New Jersey in the east to San Francisco, California in the west. We will follow it almost exclusively for the three-day journey to Detroit. The five eastern states we will pass through – New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan – are among the poorest in the union.