Even the dead are fleeing Detroit

[Storebought]

From the Agence France Press

12,000 burnt-out rat infested crack havens take up a land area the size of San Francisco.

Another interesting development: the Detroit Democratic Party is losing its most reliable voter base

Perhaps the biggest challenge to luring the middle class from the area's swank suburbs is overcoming racial tensions, said Stephen Vogel, dean of the school of architecture at University of Detroit Mercy.

"Suburbanites are taking the bodies of their relatives out of cemeteries because they're afraid to come to the city," Vogel said. "There are about 400 to 500 hundred (being moved) a year which shows you the depth of racism and fear."

Seriously: how can you convince rational people to live in Detroit when Oakland County has some of the nicest suburbs in the nation? Giuliani could turn around NYC b/c that city still had hundreds of billions in assets and a wealthy taxbase in Manhattan -- Detroit has neither.

[Virginian87]

Detroit "lost it" in the '70s.  That place has serious problems.  Though if Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Cleveland can get their acts together with urban revitalization, surely Detroit, as a fellow Rust Belt city, can do the same. 

[Cashcow]

In its current political and economic state, Detroit is broken beyond repair. The suburbs are wonderful. I grew up in one. Eventually, it will be something of a normal city again, but not in our lifetimes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Detriot is the most perfect and most extreme example of a spiral of collapse brought on by a collapsing tax base.
It's f***ed on it's own.

[danwxman]

Actually, the suburbs of Detroit are horrible as well.

[Virginian87]

Detriot is the most perfect and most extreme example of a spiral of collapse brought on by a collapsing tax base.
It's f***ed on it's own.

I blame white flight and the race riots, as well as a very corrupt city government.

[A18]

If a city has to be nuked somewhere in America, let's make sure it's Detroit.

[dazzleman]

Detriot is the most perfect and most extreme example of a spiral of collapse brought on by a collapsing tax base.
It's f***ed on it's own.

I blame white flight and the race riots, as well as a very corrupt city government.

It's interesting you mention white flight and race riots in the same sentence.  Why do you think whites fled?

People like to blame all these things on "racism."  Would racism alone motivate people to move dead bodies?  People have legitimate reasons not to want anything to do with Detroit, or some of the people who live there.

The fact is that Detroit is a horrible place to live or even visit.  It offers nothing.  At least some of the blame for that has to be laid at the feet of the people who live there, and who make it that way.  If enough Detroit residents decided to make it better, it would be better.

If you blame white flight, you're saying that a city can't be good without being mostly white.  While that is sometimes true in practice, to assert it in theory is racist in its own way.  In theory, it shouldn't matter whether the residents are white or black, but you're saying it does, and that the fact that the residents are mostly black is what is making Detroit bad.  Liberals often do this, even while condemning "racism" (usually from their comfortable suburban homes).

Much of the blame for this belongs to liberal urban and social policies.  Liberal urban and social policies, the highlights of which are high taxes, forced busing, tolerance for criminal activity, especially by blacks, and subsidization and encouragement of substandard family structure through criminally stupid welfare policies, made many of our cities unlivable, to one degree or another, by the early 1970s.  Anybody who had a choice left, including many blacks.  There was absolutely no reason to stay living in cities under these circumstances, especially when even the better neighborhoods were not allowed to have decent schools.

Some cities did better than others.  Cities like New York, having major corporate presence, didn't totally lose their tax base, and fared better than cities like Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, etc.

It's a very sad story.

[ilikeverin]

Heh, my mom lived in what is now the ghetto of Detroit.  Back then it was the Polish/Irish part of town

Once we drove by her house.  Then we took some odd route back to where we were staying... or something... so we ended up driving down lots of streets that all advertised check cashing.  And we drove on 8 MILE ROAD *extreme gasp*

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Detriot is the most perfect and most extreme example of a spiral of collapse brought on by a collapsing tax base.
It's fυcked on it's own.

I blame white flight and the race riots, as well as a very corrupt city government.

Yes, how dare people go to someplace that think will be better for them!

Seriously tho, my father grew up in Detroit in the 30's and 40's.  We happened to go past the city on a trip that took us up to Lewiston, MI in 1984 to bury his mother who had been born there and who when her husband had retired had acquired a summer home there.  He was shocked by what had happened to Detroit since he had lived there.  The thing I most remember is going to his old high school so that he could show me his name on a bronze wall-mounted plaque that had a list of the students there who served in WWII only to find out that it had been stolen some years earlier.

Detroit is in a vicious cycle of downsizing and you know what, it's not going to reverse itself any time soon.  Any one with any sense is going to continue to move away as soon as they are able to.  The slowdown in the rate of decline in the 90's has reversed itself they've lost 50,000 in the past 5 years (as many as in all of the 90's) and dropped out of the Top 10 U.S. cities by population.  Already, the majority of people in Wayne County live outside Detroit.  I would not be at all surprised to see Detroit down to only 500,000 by 2050.  The crucial point will be when Detroit falls below 1/3 of Wayne County's population as ostensibly so that it can be in a more central location, the county government will then relocate the county seat to either Dearborn, Livonia or Wayne.  It'll be a significant symbolic act, because once even the bureaucrats abandon the city the corporations will quickly follow.

[Redefeatbush04]

Detriot is the most perfect and most extreme example of a spiral of collapse brought on by a collapsing tax base.
It's f***ed on it's own.

I blame white flight and the race riots, as well as a very corrupt city government.

It's interesting you mention white flight and race riots in the same sentence.  Why do you think whites fled?

People like to blame all these things on "racism."  Would racism alone motivate people to move dead bodies?  People have legitimate reasons not to want anything to do with Detroit, or some of the people who live there.

The fact is that Detroit is a horrible place to live or even visit.  It offers nothing.  At least some of the blame for that has to be laid at the feet of the people who live there, and who make it that way.  If enough Detroit residents decided to make it better, it would be better.

If you blame white flight, you're saying that a city can't be good without being mostly white.  While that is sometimes true in practice, to assert it in theory is racist in its own way.  In theory, it shouldn't matter whether the residents are white or black, but you're saying it does, and that the fact that the residents are mostly black is what is making Detroit bad.  Liberals often do this, even while condemning "racism" (usually from their comfortable suburban homes).

Much of the blame for this belongs to liberal urban and social policies.  Liberal urban and social policies, the highlights of which are high taxes, forced busing, tolerance for criminal activity, especially by blacks, and subsidization and encouragement of substandard family structure through criminally stupid welfare policies, made many of our cities unlivable, to one degree or another, by the early 1970s.  Anybody who had a choice left, including many blacks.  There was absolutely no reason to stay living in cities under these circumstances, especially when even the better neighborhoods were not allowed to have decent schools.

Some cities did better than others.  Cities like New York, having major corporate presence, didn't totally lose their tax base, and fared better than cities like Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, etc.

It's a very sad story.

I agree. Nice post.

[dazzleman]

It's interesting you mention white flight and race riots in the same sentence.  Why do you think whites fled?

People like to blame all these things on "racism."  Would racism alone motivate people to move dead bodies?  People have legitimate reasons not to want anything to do with Detroit, or some of the people who live there.

The fact is that Detroit is a horrible place to live or even visit.  It offers nothing.  At least some of the blame for that has to be laid at the feet of the people who live there, and who make it that way.  If enough Detroit residents decided to make it better, it would be better.

If you blame white flight, you're saying that a city can't be good without being mostly white.  While that is sometimes true in practice, to assert it in theory is racist in its own way.  In theory, it shouldn't matter whether the residents are white or black, but you're saying it does, and that the fact that the residents are mostly black is what is making Detroit bad.  Liberals often do this, even while condemning "racism" (usually from their comfortable suburban homes).

Much of the blame for this belongs to liberal urban and social policies.  Liberal urban and social policies, the highlights of which are high taxes, forced busing, tolerance for criminal activity, especially by blacks, and subsidization and encouragement of substandard family structure through criminally stupid welfare policies, made many of our cities unlivable, to one degree or another, by the early 1970s.  Anybody who had a choice left, including many blacks.  There was absolutely no reason to stay living in cities under these circumstances, especially when even the better neighborhoods were not allowed to have decent schools.

Some cities did better than others.  Cities like New York, having major corporate presence, didn't totally lose their tax base, and fared better than cities like Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, etc.

It's a very sad story.

I agree. Nice post.

thanks dude

[Virginian87]

Detriot is the most perfect and most extreme example of a spiral of collapse brought on by a collapsing tax base.
It's f***ed on it's own.

I blame white flight and the race riots, as well as a very corrupt city government.

It's interesting you mention white flight and race riots in the same sentence.  Why do you think whites fled?

People like to blame all these things on "racism."  Would racism alone motivate people to move dead bodies?  People have legitimate reasons not to want anything to do with Detroit, or some of the people who live there.

The fact is that Detroit is a horrible place to live or even visit.  It offers nothing.  At least some of the blame for that has to be laid at the feet of the people who live there, and who make it that way.  If enough Detroit residents decided to make it better, it would be better.

If you blame white flight, you're saying that a city can't be good without being mostly white.  While that is sometimes true in practice, to assert it in theory is racist in its own way.  In theory, it shouldn't matter whether the residents are white or black, but you're saying it does, and that the fact that the residents are mostly black is what is making Detroit bad.  Liberals often do this, even while condemning "racism" (usually from their comfortable suburban homes).

Much of the blame for this belongs to liberal urban and social policies.  Liberal urban and social policies, the highlights of which are high taxes, forced busing, tolerance for criminal activity, especially by blacks, and subsidization and encouragement of substandard family structure through criminally stupid welfare policies, made many of our cities unlivable, to one degree or another, by the early 1970s.  Anybody who had a choice left, including many blacks.  There was absolutely no reason to stay living in cities under these circumstances, especially when even the better neighborhoods were not allowed to have decent schools.

Some cities did better than others.  Cities like New York, having major corporate presence, didn't totally lose their tax base, and fared better than cities like Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, etc.

It's a very sad story.

I didn't mean for my post to be interpreted as racist.  But one must admit that white flight has been a cause for the deterioration of the American inner city in the last forty years, which in turn stemmed from race riots and the growing development of suburbia.  Good post and analysis though.

[Alcon]

It becomes a cycle, though - white flight is not just spontaneous, but slumps tend to turn into spirals through it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It becomes a cycle

Exactly. Detriot is the most perfect example of such a cycle pretty much anywhere.

[Platypus]

this is a very odd discussion from an Aussie point of view. The only city that has ever come close to anything even remotely like the dying cities in the rust belt would be Newcastle, a steel town, but even then it's regenerating itself. I can'tr really understand how this can happen in the west.

[dazzleman]

I didn't mean for my post to be interpreted as racist.  But one must admit that white flight has been a cause for the deterioration of the American inner city in the last forty years, which in turn stemmed from race riots and the growing development of suburbia.  Good post and analysis though.

I know you didn't intend for it to be racist.  I'm just trying to get people to think outside the box.  So much of our thinking on urban and racial issues is programmed according to a preset formula, and that formula has failed.  I like to try to get people to look at thing from a different angle in the hope that we'll find more success that way.

[Cashcow]

Actually, the suburbs of Detroit are horrible as well.

Location:     Harrisburg, PA

Thanks for the input

[ilikeverin]

Actually, the suburbs of Detroit are horrible as well.

Location:    Harrisburg, PA

Thanks for the input

Location is not necessarily a sign of knowledge (or lack thereof) on Detroit.  For instance, my entire family except for something like 3 people lives in Detroit and surrounding environs, so I know at least a modicum about it

[danwxman]

Actually, the suburbs of Detroit are horrible as well.

Location:     Harrisburg, PA

Thanks for the input

Selfishness of the suburbanites has destroyed Detroit...anybody can see that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Selfishness of the suburbanites has destroyed Detroit...anybody can see that.

Not wanting to live in a collapsing hellhole is "selfish"? At some point (I don't know when. Maybe Ernest does) Detriot hit a tipping point whereafter nothing the city itself could do could save it. As I've said before a classic cycle of collapse.
Be honest now, would you rather live in inner Detriot or a suburb?

[dazzleman]

Actually, the suburbs of Detroit are horrible as well.

Location:     Harrisburg, PA

Thanks for the input

Selfishness of the suburbanites has destroyed Detroit...anybody can see that.

I really don't agree.  The social dysfunction of a large segment of Detroit's population, coupled with the liberal notion that others in the city should suffer the consequences of that dysfunction even if they did not share it, drove the functional population out of Detroit.

It is not selfishness but self-preservation.  It is no more selfish than removing a part of your body that has cancer so that the rest of the body can survive.  There's no way anybody with a choice should stay in such a living hell.  The people who engage in the type of behavior that make Detroit a living hell are squarely to blame for the problems, not "selfish" suburbanites who only want to live a decent life, and aren't doing any harm to anybody.

[Virginian87]

Actually, the suburbs of Detroit are horrible as well.

Location:     Harrisburg, PA

Thanks for the input

Selfishness of the suburbanites has destroyed Detroit...anybody can see that.

I think he's joking.

[dazzleman]

Actually, the suburbs of Detroit are horrible as well.

Location:     Harrisburg, PA

Thanks for the input

Selfishness of the suburbanites has destroyed Detroit...anybody can see that.

I think he's joking.

It could be, but there are some people who actually believe that, and I though danwxman might be one of them, based on some of his other opinions.

Now, if someone like StatesRights said it, I'd know for sure he wasn't serious...

[Cashcow]

The fact is that Detroit is a horrible place to live or even visit.

There are plenty of interesting places to visit in Detroit, including (but not limited to) the Henry Ford Museum, which houses hundreds of important items in American history - like the chair Lincoln was shot in - and Greenfield Village, which takes visitors on a tour through Detroit's history of car manufacturing. Downtown is relatively safe. You can find some of the best restaurants in the country, especially if you're fond of Chinese and Thai. The Cranbrook Institute of Science is one of the most fascinating places in the entire world.

You are ill-informed.