President Obama came here Wednesday to highlight the resurgence of the national auto industry and this most troubled of American cities, even as state and federal leaders grapple with an unfolding public health crisis in nearby Flint.

Lunching at a trendy brew pub, touring the Shinola watch factory and viewing electric vehicles at the Detroit Auto Show, the president made clear that he thinks the city is on an upswing.

On a show floor cleared of ordinary spectators, Obama held open the door of a plug-in hybrid model of the Chrysler Pacifica minivan and later got behind the wheel of a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV, an ­all-electric vehicle.

“Beautiful,” he said of the gleaming red Chrysler before turning to reporters. “You guys remember ‘Get Shorty,’ right? It’s cool driving a minivan.”

Detroit, which suffered such major economic setbacks that it declared bankruptcy two years ago, has made major gains in recent years. Its unemployment rate is about 10.7 percent, down from 24.8 percent in 2010, the highest rate among 50 major cities. An infusion of federal funding, coupled with philanthropic and corporate investment, has spurred new businesses, improved public services and helped finance a major demolition effort in blighted neighborhoods.

Speaking at the Detroit Auto Show, President Obama remarked on the Flint water crisis saying he would be "beside himself" if his children's health were put at risk. (Reuters)

“There’s still plenty of work to do, but you can feel the difference, you can feel something special happening in Detroit,” Obama said in a speech at the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources. “So what is true of Detroit is true of the country. . . . Right now, I want people to remember how far we’ve come.”

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But sometimes it is hard for the broader American public to hear that message. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in December found that just as many respondents disapproved as approved of Obama’s handling of the economy, at 48 percent each.

The fact that Obama declared a state of emergency Saturday providing up to $5 million in federal assistance to address drinking water contamination in Flint, 70 miles north of Detroit, has further muddied the picture. The city’s supply became contaminated with lead, a potent neurotoxin, starting in April 2014 when a state-appointed city manager approved drawing water from the nearby Flint River to cut costs.

“And I know that if I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself that my kids’ health could be at risk,” Obama said in his speech at the UAW-GM center. “It is a reminder of why you can’t shortchange basic services that we provide to our people, and that we together provide as a government, to make sure that public health and safety is preserved.”

Detroit, by contrast, has put much of its most recent crisis behind it. Although a number of factors help account for the city’s ongoing recovery, experts said the 2009 bailout that Obama provided U.S. automakers General Motors and Chrysler played a critical role. Since the bailout, the industry has added 646,000 manufacturing and retail jobs, and last year, U.S. drivers bought more cars and trucks — 17.5 million — than ever.

“The fact that the president focused on an auto bailout to shore up the core manufacturing sector, that investment has certainly borne out,” said Amy Liu, director of the Metropolitan Policy Center at the Brookings Institution, noting that the industry helps sustain not only direct jobs but related economic activity, including 32,000 jobs in computer systems design.

Although the overwhelming portion of direct auto-manufacturing jobs are not in Detroit — more than 80 percent of American cars aren’t even made in Michigan — Liu said that “there’s no doubt that the manufacturing supply chain has extended beyond Detroit” and that “a lot of the R&D activity is still housed in the Detroit headquarters and in the Detroit area.”

More broadly, the Obama administration has taken part in an intense effort aimed at helping the Motor City rebound. It has “unlocked, repurposed or redirected” more than $300 million in federal investments for Detroit, said a White House official, and embedded at least three full-time officials in the mayor’s office to help work on recovery efforts. The city has used $130 million in Treasury money to demolish more than 7,500 blighted structures in less than two years, out of 40,000 targeted for destruction. A $25 million Transportation Department grant allowed Detroit to buy 80 new buses, and it recently restarted 24-hour service on several key routes.

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The private sector has played a critical part in initiatives as well, and in September 2014, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, council member James Tate, former mayor Dave Bing and Skillman Foundation President Tonya Allen joined together to start a city chapter of My Brother’s Keeper, a White House effort aimed at supporting young men of color. The group has pledged to double the number of people working in the summer youth employment program in the next three years and add 5,000 African American and Latino men employed in the city’s high-growth industries by 2020.

“It’s a great model, in that they have made sure they have leaders from the highest level involved,” White House Cabinet Secretary Broderick Johnson, who chairs the My Brother’s Keeper task force, said in an interview. “It won’t be so affected by changes in political leadership and elections and the like.”

Bruce Katz, an urbanization expert at the Brookings Institution, said much of the credit for the city’s revival lies with its “private and civic institutions and leaders.”

“The federal government is obviously a major investor in Detroit. But for the most part, there isn’t intentionality to federal money,” he said. “It flows. It’s a hodgepodge of grants to the city, HUD, support for Wayne State, the health-care system.”

The city is still struggling on several fronts. On Wednesday, its public school teachers staged a walkout to highlight the schools’ deteriorating physical structures as well their overall financial predicament. In response, the school district filed a lawsuit to halt the walkout that has disrupted the routines of both students and parents.

As Obama ate lunch at the Jolly Pumpkin Brewery in midtown, an establishment that advertised its “artisan ales,” Cass Technical High School social studies teacher Brian Diskin complained that the emergency financial management rules put in place by state leaders had robbed students and teachers of the ability to have an impact on city’s schools.

“There is a renaissance going on in Detroit, and we want to be a big part of that,” Diskin said, adding that because 40 percent to 50 percent of the district’s school funding goes to pay down its debt, students face “deplorable conditions.” “But we don’t think we can do that as long as the students are being cheated out of a decent public school education.”

Cecilia Muñoz, Obama’s domestic policy adviser, has a personal stake in the city. Her parents moved from Bolivia to Michigan in 1950 so her father could attend the University of Michigan, moving to Detroit a year later so he could work as an automotive engineer for Ford.

Muñoz, who was born in Detroit, grew up in the suburb of Livonia and goes back regularly to visit her relatives in the area, said the fact that the “federal government approached its role by doing a lot of listening” was instrumental in helping bring back the city. Growing up, she avoided Detroit’s Cass Avenue because “it was synonymous with blight and crime and danger.”

A year ago, she and her sister went to that same street to grab lunch at “an adorable tapas place” and check out the Shinola watch factory, along with several other small shops. On Wednesday, Obama walked within a block of Cass Avenue and later showed off one of the Shinola watches.

“This street was bustling with all kinds of people,” Muñoz recalled. “The Cass Avenue I walked down a year ago was indescribable. People were there because it’s vibrant.”

And if people are still skeptical of the city’s recovery, she added, it’s understandable. “People in the country, and certainly people in Michigan and Detroit, went through a really hard time. A really hard and scary time.”

juliet.eilperin@washpost.com

steven.mufson@washpost.com

Scott Clement contributed to this report.