WTF is going on in Detroit? Can anyone in Detroit confirm this?

[TwixVoy]

This guy has posted these two videos of what he says is typical of what is going on in Detroit right now. Can anyone confirm/deny this?

If this is truly all over Detroit we may be in for a shit storm through out the rest of the country. What is that old saying? "As Detroit goes so does the rest of the country?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3tH2jFaFW4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOney2b41d4

[angstlessk]

1. what he showed is a pretty fair look at Detroit...1,500 sq homes are the norm

all brick and beautiful...only abandoned and let to rot..this would NEVER happen in Norfolk VA, from where I moved to be here in Detroit...it is sad indeed to see all these great homes just continue to crumble.

and Monica Conyers is the president of the City Council and she is a NUT BAG...why she continues to e voted for I have NO IDEA!

[sufrommich]

5. She's not the only nut bag on the council. They all need to go.

The government in the city is corrupt to the core. Apparently, the only business that will be left in Detroit will be tourist traffic geared toward the few brave souls who want a first hand look at America's first fallen city.

[Faygo Kid]

130. I was born in Detroit. I spent a half-century there. The story is not simple.

I spent my first few years there, then moved just across Eight Mile Road, into Warren, but spent all my growing-up years there. It's not a simple story, and what I know is much too long for a post here. I love Detroit; I saw it go down, I know it's not all about race, and there are lessons to be learned for all of America. Unfortunately, all we do in this nation is ignore those lessons, and "tsk-tsk" Detroit. Believe me, it's not that simple. And there are fighters there today, and many who would live nowhere else than Detroit and/or Michigan.

Including me. I'm going back to Michigan once I retire (Traverse City, hello Michael Moore), and I look forward to visiting Detroit and old haunts this coming year. It's not so simple, folks.

[Bozita]

2. CBC News aired some interesting pieces on Detroit a couple of weeks back.

Enjoy!

http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/special_feature/hard_times_hard_choices/red_white_and_the_economic_blu.html

Monday, March 30
Detroit Blues
Mark Kelley heads to the Motor City of Detroit, Michigan, where nearly 40% of the downtown is abandoned in this once gleaming city.
(RUNS 6:57)

Detroit Dazzle
Peter Mansbridge takes a look at some of the architectural and artistic treasures of Detroit, symbols of the city's by-gone automotive sector success.
(RUNS 4:01)

Tuesday, March 31
The Pride of Windsor
Peter Mansbridge takes an historical look at the city of Windsor from the Ford Motor Company, and interviews journalist Alisa Priddle of The Detroit News who lives in the city of Windsor.
(RUNS 5:51)

Sharing the Pain
Our Windsor-based journalist Susan Pedler looks at the different industries given life through the Detroit/Windsor car industry, and how Windsor's health depends on a comeback in Detroit, too.
(RUNS 4:19)

Signs of Hope in Detroit
There are plenty of signs of desperate times in the United States as the recession there deepens. But it isn't all doom and gloom in Detroit. Mark Kelley also found some signs of hope.
(RUNS 6:58)

Wednesday, April 1
The National presents a report from California, where the economy has fallen off the cliff, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is struggling desperately to rescue it.

[roamer65]

29. Delete.

[Generic Other]

3. How come there aren't urban scavengers taking the paneling, doors moldings, staircases

This stuff is beautiful old building material. Probably worth a lot of money. A couple hours in a u-haul truck seems like it could net someone a tidy profit on salvageable materials.

[Bozita]

6. It's illegal. But it goes on every day.

[sufrommich]

7. Anything worth money is already gone. nt

[parasim]

10. Oh, they are.

-snip

Thieves mine empty homes for doorknobs, light fixtures, doors, radiators (attractive as scrap metal) and, especially, copper pipes and wiring. "Right now the city of Detroit is the biggest copper-mining location in the country," jokes Tom Ball, a real-estate agent here. Within a few minutes, these looters can cause damage that costs tens of thousands of dollars to repair.

-snip

Jill Thomas, a mother of two who works for her family's auto-parts salvage business, has lost count of how many times she and her neighbors have called the police about suspicious people, such as a man recently seen towing two shopping carts of scrap behind his bicycle. "911, they know my name," Ms. Thomas says.

-snip


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122109887614522201.html


on edit: added another snip

[MrMickeysMom]

36. I'm betting that's what is going on in the "inside"...

What a catastrophe!

[Fire1]

4. This is not ALL of Detroit. There are still some very nice

neighborhoods remaining. This guy was fed a lot of misinformation, too. Yes, there is a large percentage of citizens who work for the city but not city government per se. Ex: Water Dept., Waste management. There are state workers, federal employees, and a very large percentage employed by a major university within the city, as well as the public and charter school systems and a huge multi medical center. Due to the massive layoffs in the automotive industry, Detroit has lost much of it's tax base. Consequently, taxes were raised but NOT to 8%. 6% is more accurate.

[Carni]

25. Um where?

Indian village, Rosedale park (part of it and it's surrounded by blight)
The neighborhoods on Woodward near 8 mile--those are about the only *nice* neighborhoods I can think of and the surrounding areas are terrible.

I guess if you are wealthy can send your kids to private schools and you can afford a really great security system on your house and you have a bunch of neighborhood watch types who all work for the City then Detroit is just peachy keen to live in--for the rest of the people it's not so much.

I would love to say that Detroit gets a bad rap but quite frankly many of the neighborhoods do in fact look like what is in the videos and no one seems to give a shit.

Poverty really sucks.

[angstlessk]

55. I was EXTREMELY lucky, we bought a home here last year, sight unseen

except a video of the interior, and our street is one block long and has very little traffic and no pedestrian traffic except for neighbors. Like I said I was very lucky. We live near Boston Edison and am truly sickened at all the houses (which would be georgeous homes in VA) going to pot (not the medicinal type-the rotting type). I understand Detroit was built to house over 2 million people and the population is less than 1 million now, so there is an excess of homes to start with PLUS all the forclosures!

[Carni]

89. There are some gorgeous homes there

I worked in the city for about a year and grew up in the metro area.

The city has been beaten up for years-- I cannot even imagine what it's like now!

[LuckyTheDog]

148. It has improved in many areas

The city has seen billions of dollars in development in the pas 20 years. Many areas have been vastly improved. Why do you assume that everything has gone downhill in every part of town?

[Fire1]

73. Where? Palmer Woods, Russell Woods, University (UofD)

District off of Livernois, West and East Outer Drive, East English Village, Lafayette Park, Sherwood Forrest area, LaSalle Blvd. area. Detroit has ALWAYS had 'pockets' of middle class neighborhoods surrounded by low income residents in mult rental dwellings. The aforementioned neighborhoods continue to thrive in spite of the downturn.

[Carni]

100. I mentioned many of those neighborhoods

You either don't read well, or you don't know Detroit very well--Palmer woods is the area I alluded to off of Woodward near 8 mile.

In addition... I am sure there are "pockets" of nice homes in Baghdad, but that doesn't do a hell of a lot for the rest of the people trying to live in a hell hole of an environment.

[LuckyTheDog]

127. I live in Detroit by choice

And I like it. There is blight in NY City, too. But nobody assumes that the South Bronx is representative of the entire city.

[Carni]

145. Detroit is no New York

You must be kidding.

[LuckyTheDog]

147. You missed my point

My point (of course) was that the existence of abandoned buildings in SOME parts of a city does not say anythine about ALL parts of a city. Get it? It's a basic logical concept.

[Fire1]

129. You named Indian Village and 'neighborhood off of 8 mile.'

That would give anybody the impression that everything else is Bagdad, which is a lie. So, I added a few more descent areas for accuracy.

[Carni]

144. yeah whatever

And Rosedale park but don't trouble yourself with facts.

[sarcasmo]

77. Where are those neighborhoods? My son and in laws live in Macomb County very nice north of about

14mile. Please tell me where "There are still some very nice neighborhoods remaining"

[Barack_America]

78. Why? They would never believe it.

And they would never visit them to see them with their own eyes.

[Irish Girl]

8. Absolutely astonishing

I live outside the second poorest city in the nation (Buffalo, NY) and we have struggled with immense urban decay for decades. Many of those homes in Detroit, however, look like a nuke was dropped on them. We have similar rotting neighborhoods but it doesn't seem to be as widespread...yet.

I'd like to see coverage of tent cities sprouting up across the nation as well. I truly fear for our country. We have so many developed but empty subdivisions and I can't figure out who will be filling all these empty residences. Vacant strip malls and abandoned buildings are becoming an eery norm and many families are truly suffering. :(

[WCGreen]

9. Take a look at Cleveland while your at it...

But hey, we found money to build a baseball stadium, a football field and a Basketball Arena all on the people's dime.

[Barack_America]

14. Look at North Philly too.

Urban decay is everywhere in this country, but particularly bad in our former manufacturing cities.

[Barack_America]

11. What a fucking tool this guy is.

Perfect example of why suburbanites should stay in the suburbs.

Urban blight? Ye gads!

This is poverty, asshole. Wake.the.fuck.up.

And, FYI, his so called "guides" had no clue where they were taking him. When he kept saying he was in the "middle of Detroit" or "downtown Detroit" or "Detroit's worst neighborhoods", he was wrong every time.

[Blue Diadem]

24. Yep. I agree. Wikipedia's 2000 census info for Highland Park

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Park,_Michigan

The median income for a household in the city was $17,737, and the median income for a family was $26,484. Males had a median income of $31,014 versus $26,186 for females. The per capita income for the city was $12,121. About 32.1% of families and 38.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 47.1% of those under age 18 and 30.8% of those age 65 or over.
-----
At that time there were 7,249 housing units with 6,199 households. That's a lot of empty housing.

[Barack_America]

27. These people are making no effort to understand poverty.

Pointing and staring at other people's and communities' misfortunes accomplishes nothing.

[salin]

28. I disagree.

It is a fate that awaits many of us if we continue to kill the industrial sector and reward outsourcing.

I lived/worked in the area for a number of years in the early 90s. At that point due to NAFTA there were alreacy a lot of plant closures with no new similar jobs arriving. By 1993 I remember reading that there was, on average, 3 abandoned homes per every city block. This is not a harbinger of what is just around the corner in most urban areas, but it is a harbinger for what is around the corner for the next generation if our economic base does not seriously change.

This is not the result of a natural disaster per New Orleans. This is the result of economic trends and policies that were felt first in Detroit, but that have followed (maybe a decade or so delayed) in many other communities. This is about pointing to a tragedy that could easily befall many other communities if SERIOUS public policy changes do not occur in the future. Seriously, I doubt that most Americans are familiar with the fate of many urban neighborhoods in Detroit. That is a shame, because it should be a BIG wakeup call to us all.

[MrMickeysMom]

37. Agreed...

I'm newly on a municipal council in PA. I'm also married to someone who grew up in Pontiac. Both of these things have meaning. One of us has to deal with the as yet uninformed constituents here of what is happening and what we must do. The other has the sense of what Detroit was and is... truly.

This is not a circus side show. It has to be shown and discussed as steps towards making sure it has a new direction... NONE of which will happen SOON ENOUGH!

[nonconformist]

44. I'm from Pontiac, too

Born and raised. Many members of my family are still there.

[MrMickeysMom]

52. Hmmmm...

What circa???

My husband was born in 1946...

[nonconformist]

53. Born in 1973

:)

[susanna]

68. My grandparents moved to, and my parents grew up, in Pontiac.

It was once a nice place, however hard to believe. I was there last week visiting a relative in the hospital and did a drive-around for old times sake. I ended up crying when I saw my grandparent's old house. It's falling apart along with the rest of the neighborhood. It was still okay, though the neighborhood was starting to decline, when they left in 1985. :-(

[Nevernose]

38. This guy, though, blamed it on the welfare system.

I agree with your post, but that's not what the guy who posted the video was trying to say (or at least that's my guess; otherwise it was just kind of pointless -- there are bad neighborhoods in every city and town in America).

[Barack_America]

58. The "reasons" he proposed were the same bullshit reasons...

...everyone from the Detroit suburbs spouts off.

Welfare, city council, lazy blacks, blah blah blah.

Nothing about corporate greed, outsourcing, destruction of American manufacturing, the racist suburbs leaving Detroit to die, etc. (i.e. the REAL reasons).

[KittyWampus]

64. At least he's taking an interest in raising awareness while all YOU do is trash someone else's

creative endeavor.

BTW, the reasons he gave are perfectly valid as parts of the equation. May not be the whole thing. But they are important parts.

And the answer for these people is NOT handouts in any form whatsoever.

It's Community Organizing.

Humans can live like disperse, unorganized victims or they can get together and strive for better conditions and DEMAND respect.

If jobs left Detroit, why the hell didn't the city's authorities do something to attract some new industry?

[Barack_America]

70. Why should I respect someone who clearly did NO research....

...about what he was saying?

He didn't even know that the airport is in the suburbs, not the city.

He sat there and lapped up all the bullshit his white suburban "ex-military" guides fed him, all of which was 100% wrong. He then regurgitated that information as "fact".

He trespasses in an abandoned building and talks about how that's the sort of place where people come to use drugs and kill people.

Please.

Detroit is in a bad place to be sure, but clowns like this guy are doing nothing to help.

[LuckyTheDog]

72. He lost me...

...when he seemed surprised that he could not easily walk into the city from Metro Airport.

[salin]

140. That was true back in the era to which I refer. Perhaps this that is one

of the factors in the decline. Politically, at the state level, Detroit was scapegoated by such rhetoric. Back in 1992, if I recall correctly, the decent dem governor ignored Detroit in the general election (assuming the city would vote for him as a democrat in great majority) but while ignoring all very serious issues that faced Detroit in the GE. It was a surprise upset by Blanchard. I only lived in Michigan for about one year into the Blanchard era, but I recall there were great fears of his severely cutting (and ending?) programs including heating assistance for the very poor. There were fears of fatalities likely to occur to these severe cuts.

I can only speak to the earliest period of that period. The republican governor was hailed as a rising star in gop politics (just as they were getting more extreme per the Gingrich era in congress per 1994).

Hearing current residents describe this rhetoric as alive and prevalent, suggests to me that it has been the dominant 'conventional wisdom' outside of Detroit for the preceding 15+ years. So as more money migrated out of Detroit to the 'burbs', was no money funneled back into the city?

These videos broke my heart (I watched without the sound), and seemed very real to me given the early decay I had witnessed/lived-worked with a decade and a half ago. Tragic. I would happily contribute (though I don't have much) to another 'documentary' - to a) reconfirm the extreme deterioration of some Detroit neighborhoods and b) talk about some of the source causes that you list (all true back in the point of time that I was there), and c) challenging viewers to consider those communities (there's or those near them) that might be experiencing early decay and what would it take for those communities to come-back vs stay static vs go into the type of decline showed on this vides (and other recent photographic documentaries on Detroit). I would guess that "static" is not really an option. I often don't think people can really connect tragedy to themselves until they can consider concrete examples that they are already familiar with.

I wish I had the time and the talent to produce such a film.

[Carni]

116. Very well stated

I couldn't agree more.

[Blue Diadem]

119. I understand what you're saying.

I think the guy and his cohorts in the video live in a bubble and this is a fantastic new find for them. I can point to neighborhoods in the city near here that have declined from industry closing up from my toddler years in the 50's. It really is nothing new. IMO, it boils down to big industry and corporations who feel they owe nothing, not only to their employees and former employees but to the community as a whole. They come in, employ and get people used to a lifestyle. Suddenly the pastures are greener elsewhere and industry moves leaving behind a mess of massive buildings and toxins. Those buildings are not conducive to being reused in most cases. That and the lower incomes of those left behind leads to decay of the structures and poverty.

Ultimately it's the taxpayers once again who pay for the mess that corporations create and if it's a poverty stricken area, tax dollars just aren't there.

[snooper2]

81. The best part of the whole stupid ass "video" is at 5:38

When the fucking idiot falls on his ass :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Bozita]

12. See "Detroit Wildlife" in HD - IMHO, the best of the videos on Detroit

http://vimeo.com/2371774

[Generic Other]

31. there was a beauty in the ruins that this film captured

thanks so much for sharing it!

[Bozita]

120. Florent Tillon is returning this summer to flesh out the piece into a complete documentary.

Monsieur Tillon is an active participant in the discussion under the video at the link.

His English may not be polished, but his videography is stunning.

[noamnety]

13. Looks about right

A couple of my photos:





Our population is half of what it was in the 1950's, we lost nearly a million residents. Imagine a city of less than a million people with almost enough vacant housing for an additional million. That's a lot of abandoned houses and apartment buildings. And with that came vacant businesses, so that's extra abandoned factories and warehouses as well.

This probably would sound really weird to anyone in a different part of the country, but at a parent-teacher conference last week, one of the parents asked if we were going to take any field trips trespassing into abandoned buildings - if so, he wanted to come be a chaperone.

We have some amazing huge abandoned structures. The train station:



and the packard plant, 3.5 million square feet of interconnected buildings spreading across 35 acres in the heart of the city, just left empty.

That's just a few ... there are a lot.

edit: looking at other posts in the thread, I want to echo some of their thoughts - that yes, there are people who live in Detroit, they go about their daily lives and do just fine. And I have friends who have slept with their mattress on the floor because the bed put them at window level. When they eventually moved to the suburbs, they said it took some getting used to, sleeping on a real bed felt creepy and vulnerable to them. There are all extremes.

[sufrommich]

19. The second pic is really quite beautiful. nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

92. I boarded a train at that station

It was a stunning place, it its day.

There's intermittent talk of restoration (or demolition), but no real business case for restoring it. It's not walking distance to downtown. I'd still hate to see it leveled.

:hi:

[noamnety]

150. I want to add to my comment

that I was talking about the look of the video because those areas are incredibly widespread here.

The guy himself, as others have said, he was an ass, and like others I shut off the volume and used the slider bar to get a taste of what he was showing. I figured when he didn't know how far it was from the airport to the city that his commentary was going to be foolish and ignorant at best, and when I hit the "maybe there's a dead body here" part that's when the volume went off and I was thinking please, somebody take that guy back to whatever state he came from, we don't need him here.

I went to chicago a couple years ago assuming it to be like detroit for some reason. I'd been there when I was a kid, but not since. I was actually shocked that no matter where we went, it was generally kept up. We did go into one abandoned housing project, it's not like they don't exist in Chicago, but they are like one area or building that stands out, not big seas of them intermingled in the same way with everything else. I've traveled a lot and lived in a lot of states and even abroad, it's not like this is the only area I've ever seen, but it has become the norm for me. After being here for 20 years now, going back to chicago was the first time I realized that the same thing hasn't happened to other midwest cities, not in the same way. I don't think I'm expressing that very well, but it was a sense of puzzlement and then realization when I saw that you could walk for blocks in Chicago without seeing a bunch of abandoned buildings - I just wasn't used to that.

[chill_wind]

15. Read this: TIME, Inc April 6 edition

Full article:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1887864,00.html

Photo essay:

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1864272_1810111,00.html

[Doremus]

135. Looks like a lot of tillable land there. That may be a blessing in the not-too-distant future.

[patrice]

16. Point well made.

Looks like Detroit could use some serious smart community organizing to get some worthwhile political results.

[noamnety]

23. I know you mean well with this post

but my impression is that buried in it is an implication that the condition of the city is sort of the fault of the residents.

In fact much of it is the fault of white corporate CEOs who sucked what they could out of the city and left their toxic crap and abandoned buildings all over the city, then moved their operations elsewhere. And some is the fault of the federal government, back when white flight was starting and federal loans weren't allowed to be given out in mixed neighborhoods. These laws forced segregation on the area (some would have happened anyway, but still it was imposed through public policy).

The corporations did what they always do, they left lead in the soil from the smelting plants in the area. There are estimates that as many as 20% of the kids who are now in high school who grew up in Detroit have some amount of lead poisoning. That's the fault of corporations, not a lack of smart community organizers. The lead in the soil affects the residents' ability to grow crops on the empty plots around them. They can do it, but they have to use raised beds and truck in soil to start with if they are in an affected area - another money drain caused by corporations and left to the residents to shoulder the costs. They put in factories that spewed out crap that left communities dealing with asthma - but the corporations didn't cover their health care costs.

[KittyWampus]

66. Well, at some point humans have to decide they are going to stick up for themselves and fight

for what they want.

Yes, people are victims.

But people are also creative and endowed with the capacity to assess a situation and come up with solutions.

[noamnety]

69. I'm getting more and more offended by your posts.

The people in Detroit are not idiots.

This may come as a shock to outsiders, but people in Detroit know how to do community organizing. Better than a whole lot of cities, I'll wager.

Your attitude is coming off as patronizing.

[RB TexLa]

17. n/a

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Reminds me of the recent book "The World Without Us"

[csziggy]

20. None of it is that recent - someone we knew went to Detroit in the early 90s

As a scab for Knight Ridder newspapers (yeah, I know - we did not know he'd turn into a full blown right wing nut after he started using crack) and he'd call with plans to buy houses for a few hundred dollars and fix them up. Of course, he blew all his money on drugs and didn't.

But a few years ago while I was planning my house, I talked online to a guy who did buy abandoned houses being sold by the banks or the county. He'd repair them, or if they were too far gone, demolish them, and then resell the house or the lot, He was making pretty good money at it but I haven't talked to him since last spring.

[Barack_America]

21. So everyone's done shitting on Texas and now it's time to shit on Detroit?

:shrug:

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

22. I can believe it

10 years ago I had to fly into Detroit for a business trip. When I got off the freeway onto a surface street (Van Dyke Street) per my directions I drove past MILES of boarded up/half-demolished/smashed buildings occasionally illuminated by the odd unbroken streetlight. This atheist uttered a silent prayer for the reliability of his rental car. I was scared half to death until I got to my hotel several miles later. It was like being in post WWII Berlin, except there were no people to be seen.

There was also a fascinating piece on NPR's "The Story" a couple of nights ago about the decrepitude of Detroit as documented by a man who grew up in the 'burbs there and now lives there again after a few years on the West Coast.

Links: http://thestory.org/sidebars/urban-explorer

http://www.jamesgriffioen.net/

[salin]

26. The decay in Detroit was already in swing when I worked there

in the early 90s. By 1993 there was an average of 3 abandoned home per block in the city. Just before I left Dennis Archer was elected and had begun to an effort to tear down some of the abandoned homes that had become crack houses.

I went back in 2000 to do some (high) school evaluations research ... and I believe we went to Cooley High and even though I remembered the economic devastation of the early NAFTA era, I was unprepared to see what looked like a war zone with more empty buildings/homes than filled.

My point is that the economic devastation in Detroit began more than 20 years ago. Some urban areas may be befalling a similar fate, but the twenty year decline has not hit many areas. I find these videos totally believable, and completely tragic. 16 years ago (when the decline was escalating, but nowhere near where it is today) I used to be driven to tears in some places - there were mid-to-large homes boarded up and abandoned all over the place and it always struck me that whole family histories of those who had lived in this places seemed 'disappeared.'

While I don't think this is a harbinger for most urban areas in the near future - I do think it is a harbinger for many over a longer time period (think one to two decades.) Turning around Wall Street, without making serious economic reforms - in my eyes will condemn many communities to find this reality in the next generation.

I loved the time I worked in Detroit, but I also found it to be a tragic (and violent) place to live nearly 20 years ago. To see this (and many other) video or photographic documentaries of Detroit bring me to tears.

I live in a fragile "transitional" neighborhood in Indianapolis, both being gentrified and having a high rate of abandoned homes. We could become one of Detroits neighborhoods within a decade if the economy continues to fall.

[notadmblnd]

35. I really think it was the riots in 68 that kicked things off

But yes, the people that run the city are corrupt to the core. It started to come back when Archer was mayor and I don't know why he gave up. Before Archer was Mayor the didn't even bother to plow Grand Blvd in the winter. I too worked in Detroit in the late 80's until 1999 (The New Center area) and as GM cut back and laid off the local businesses that were vibrant when I started there, were deserted by the time I left.

[TahitiNut]

45. The Detroit riots were in 1967, not 68.

I lived and worked in the epicenter at the time. :shrug:

[Theres-a]

46. Yes

I was born in June of 1967.My mom had an apartment on Kercheval and her parents made her move in with them(and the baby-me) to be safer.By the time we left that house in 1990(Ashland near Mack)it was a dangerous crack neighborhood,lots of abandoned houses,etc.

[notadmblnd]

47. and I was just a little girl.

about the only thing I remember about them is the curfew. thanks for the correction.

[TahitiNut]

48. It's not a time easily forgotten. Armored Personnel Carriers in the streets.

Police cars carrying four cops in full riot gear ... with shotguns or carbines sticking vertically out of the windows. Buildings burning ... including two in the same square block were I lived. The Lodge (Expressway) was closed due to too much smoke. When I drove out to the suburbs (Oak Park) to visit family one evening, I was stopped by a police barricade at the 8 Mile Road crossing ... and a police reservist held a carbine pointed at my head as he demanded identification and a reason for my travel.

Then I was drafted in 1968 and spent 1969 in Viet Nam. :shrug:

[Barack_America]

67. Your story right there tells the true story of Detroit.

How whites fled to the suburbs, effectively walled off Detroit and left it (and everyone left within it) to rot.

If I were going to blame one man for what happened to Detroit, it would be this man:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Brooks_Patterson

[roamer65]

30. Given its 22% "official" unemployment rate...

Detroit is hanging in there. Like any rust belt major city, there are nice areas and there are "no go" areas. This guy's agenda seems to be exaggerating the problems for the camera.

I work in the city, btw.

[Taitertots]

33. 22% Official unemployment rate is hanging in there?

At least a quarter of Detroiters are out of work. That is a downright epidemic. Unemployment increasing at an increasing rate. Migration out of the city at an increasing rate. Investment in the city failing at an increasing rate.

People are sustenance farming in the ruins of a metropolis.

[roamer65]

34. I'm surprised they're not rioting in Detroit.

People are doing the best they can here in MI, considering we have been in a recession for the last eight years. After that long, you just start to "roll with the punches".

[kwassa]

32. I googled "Detroit decline" and pulled up a Time article .... from 1961

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873465-1,00.html

here is a sample:


Decline in Detroit
Friday, Oct. 27, 1961

Detroit's decline has been going on for a long while. Auto production soared to an alltime peak in 1955—but there were already worrisome signs. In the face of growing foreign and domestic competition, auto companies merged, or quit, or moved out of town to get closer to markets. Automation began replacing workers in the plants that remained. In the past seven years, Chrysler, the city's biggest employer, has dropped from 130,000 to 50,000 workers. At the depth of the 1958 recession, when Detroit really began reeling. 20% of the city's work force was unemployed. Even today, the figure is an estimated 10%, and the U.S. Government lists Detroit as an area of "substantial and persistent unemployment.''

I was born in Detroit in 1952, though my family always lived in the suburbs. We moved several times for GM, my dad's career employer, and the end part of his career was back in Detroit, at the Clark St. Plant for Cadillac, where guards had to take employees to the parking lot. This is 30 years ago. My father's friend was mugged in the doorway of the main General Motors building on West Grand.

Total sections of the city were scary back in the mid-70s, when I briefly visited during and after college.

Part of the problem is the decline in sales in the US car companies. Part of the problem started long ago with the US car companies started building car plants away from Detroit, and abandoning their facilities in Detroit. I remember driving by the wreck of the River Rouge plant, one of the earliest and most famous of the Ford plants, 30 years ago.

[susanna]

71. The Rouge plant is now one of Ford's most acclaimed plants.

A lot of green initiatives were built into an overhaul that began about 10 years ago.

The non-plant portions of the complex have been sold off in bits and pieces to steel and marine port terminal interests, but the plant remains. They build the F150 truck. Some info if you are interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Rouge_Plant

[SpartanDem]

39. not everthing is doom and gloom

Like that house above rehabbed years


Two long vacant hotel open last

The Westin Book-Cadillac




These vids from Model D an online magazine that promote cool thing and neighoords in the city

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG21CWIWyIo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWzfpDtb6YY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeqTKW-M3wQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOWe5gGXnR4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK4tbUvQdSM

[Hannah Bell]

50. The Book-Cadillac is rehabbed? Sweet! Such beautiful buildings there,

so much history. It's a crime what's happened to it.

[LuckyTheDog]

59. It's totally re-habbed

It's better than it has been in many decades.

[LuckyTheDog]

65. Thank you

Could you post all of that as a new thread -- so that more people see it?

[hatrack]

40. Here's what's next for Detroit - at least, according to some investors

OTOH, I have no idea what they've set aside for environmental remediation, removing lead & cadmium, etc., from the soil - depending on specific location, of course . . ,

A Michigan-based financial group has announced ambitious plans to turn large swathes of crime-ridden Detroit into urban farmland. In the long term, Hantz Group hopes to develop up to 10,000 acres of underutilised and vacant land in Downtown Detroit - almost a tenth of the city's 143-square-mile area - and turn it into a mixture of cash crop land, ornamental gardens, and riding trails.

The ambitious scheme will begin with a 70-acre purchase on the city's Lower East Side. Matt Allen, senior vice present for Hantz subsidiary Hantz Farms, who lives close to the proposed "phase one farm", said that the land has been targeted for its low density, and currently supports between zero and nine residents per acre.

Under the proposals, the land will be sourced from privately held parcels, along with foreclosed land currently owned by the city, state, and county. In addition to buying some land outright the company is also looking to enter into partnerships with local communities to help develop other parcels of land.

Hantz will be working with researchers from Michigan State University to select the types of crop that can be grown on the land, Allen explained. Where possible, edible crops will be grown, but where soil will not support them - if, for example, it has been degraded by industrial use - it will be used for non-edible crops.

EDIT

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2239954/financiers-plant-farm-downtown

[theboss]

138. That sounds like something out of 19th Century Russia

Basically, the plan is turn what was once America's greatest city into pastures.

That's just terribly terribly sad.

[earth mom]

41. It's sad to see all those houses in ruins...but...

it bugged me that this guy was looking at it from an investor standpoint.

It's like he missed the entire point that there are NO working class jobs in Detroit that will support those homes.

That's the real problem. Not whether or not the city is going to help him make a profit off one of those mansions by lowering the taxes. :eyes:

[LuckyTheDog]

62. Mos of those houses...

...in the Boston/Edison area are not "in ruins." And it is bullshit to say that the city won't help investors lookin to fix them up. Most of the homes in that neighborhood are occupied and many have been rehabbed.

[Fire1]

74. AND the taxes ARE NOT AT 8%!!! It's 6%.

[nonconformist]

42. Hahaha, he fell down the ladder.

Yes, that's what Detroit looks like. It's actually nothing new. His tour guides are not good. When he says he's downtown, he's technically not. When he says he's in the worst areas, he's not.

If you're really interested in checking out Detroit, and all the wonderful buildings it's lost, I highly recommend this site: http://www.detroityes.com/home.htm

[Hannah Bell]

51. "Fabulous ruins of Detroit" - I'll plug that site. Done by someone who loves the city,

unlike the jackass who made the videos above.

[alfredo]

43. In the early 70's I saw a rapid decay of the city. There were a lot of

suspicious fires of homes around Wayne State. We started to think it was the university doing it so they can pick up the land cheap. Forest Avenue and Avery was my neighborhood. Along forest on the walk to Woodward ave you had to walk in the street because the grass was overgrown to the point where thieves and feral dogs could hide. So you walked in the street, your hand on your piece. You always kept one hand in your pocket just to make them guess whether you were armed or not.

Had guns pointing at my face three times. Two of the guns were chrome revolvers.

[Hannah Bell]

49. Money pulled out. The same thing happened in my town during the Reagan recession.

Mills shut down, high unemployment, other businesses went bust, downtown died. You can see the same thing in little towns in the farm belt & in the industrial "rust belt".

Capitalism at work. Wasteful, destructive, of resources & lives.


Not so impressed with the filmmakers. You can buy a mansion for $5000, & they're bitching about it coming with $8000 in taxes - still $12K for a palace. Vultures.

[Stevenmarc]

54. Detroit aside, this video a combination of Jackass and Geraldo

Sure let's stroll along a highway in the rain and when I figure out Detroit is a long way from the airport, something I could have figure out before hand, I hop into a car with random people I met on the internet, one of whom packing a gun. Oh yes let's fall down a ladder in an abandoned building and make use of our imagination on the possibility of running into a dead body.

This guy is waiting for Darwinism to kick in.

[Barack_America]

61. This guy had clearly never been to an inner city before.

It would've been a laugh to watch if the target of his bullshit hadn't been my hometown.

[Carni]

146. I totally agree lol

I esp liked when he fell on his butt going into that basement lol--but snark aside what flipped me out was the French documentary that someone posted the link to on this string...I watched it and it has haunted me all day.

[Bozita]

149. "Detroit Wildlife"

[LuckyTheDog]

56. That is a LOT of bullshit

Almost 100%. Even if some of the "facts" are accurate, the story is being spun in a context of total bullshit. Some facts are mixed in with a whole lot of lies and bad assumptions.

For one thing, the City of Highland Park is not being "taken over by the bigger City of Detroit." That is a whole-cloth fabrication. There are too many fabrications and misrepresentations in those videos than can be responded to.

[Barack_America]

60. Yes.

You are 100% correct.

He was clearly being shown around by your typical white suburbanites who have never lived in Detroit and have not a clue how it came to be as it is.

And since when is Highland Park the worst neighborhood in Detroit? lol

[LuckyTheDog]

63. I have lived in Detroit for many years...

And yes, I am astounded by some of he blight. But the city is more than 140 square miles in size. There are a lot of areas that don't fit the meme that guy was pushing.

And much of what the suburbanites were telling him was flat-out made-up nonsense.

There is a certain breed of suburbanite around here that lives to push the "Detroit is a war zone and got that way because the blacks ruined it" line. This is what that video was all about.

I live in a very nice Detroit neighborhood. I send my son to a Detroit charter school. I am glad to live in the city and do not feel unsafe here.

BTW... not that it SHOULD matter, but it does... I am white.

[Fire1]

75. THANK YOU!!!! I mentioned up thread this guy was being

fed a bunch of MISinformation.

[Romulox]

57. Detroit is the poorest city in America. Poorer than New Orleans. But because celebrities

don't like to vacation here, nobody gives a fuck. :shrug:

[Fire1]

79. Excuse me? Provide a link to your info, please? I'll wait.

[Romulox]

80. Who the hell do you think you are?

I don't answer to your orders; go to hell.

[Fire1]

83. Ah, spouting bullshit. Just as I thought.

[Romulox]

84. Look downthread, dullard. nt

[raccoon]

76. The man who did that video is an idiot. I agree with this poster on youtube:

"What a bunch of crap. You'll see low rent neighborhoods like this one in every major city in the U.S. George should go overseas, hell just across the southern border to see real poverty. Poverty that doesn't get food stamps for their sustenance from their government. George obviously has too much time on his hands. What you see in this vid is like the worst parts of Detroit, and he tries to make it seem like all of Detroit is looking like this. "

[City of Mills]

117. True

There's a lot of youtube vids of my city highlighting the urban blight and rundown areas, makes this place look like a poverty stricken wasteland. People have a certain interest and fascination at viewing urban decay, they'd rather focus on the unattractive elements and conveniently leave out the nice neighborhoods, peaceful parks and appealing landscapes. Anyone who focuses one one aspect only is probably agenda driven to some extent.

[Romulox]

82. Detroit is poorest big city in U.S.

http://www.freep.com/article/20080827/NEWS06/808270343/

[Fire1]

85. This data is from TWO years ago! You DO know those stats

have changed since then. Sure you do.

[JVS]

86. Yes, they obviously fail to take into account the economic boom in Detroit since 2007

:eyes:

If you have newer stats that show things have changed, roll em out. Stats from 2007 are recent enough to be considered accurate unless there is new evidence to contrary.

[Fire1]

87. Without posting any link have you heard anything about

California lately???

[JVS]

93. Show me stats that indicate that CA is poorer than Detroit now.

[Fire1]

101. That was not my purpose for siting CA in this example. LA and

other cities in that state would have to be down on the list via the tax base, alone, but has suffered economically due to the downturn in the national economy. My purpose is to indicate that other cities, since 2007, have surpassed Detroit as the 'poorest city in the U.S.'

[JVS]

102. Prove your point.

[nonconformist]

103. Where's your link?

[JVS]

108. And it better not be a TWO MASSIVE FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE YEARS OLD OBSOLETE link

[Fire1]

121. I'm back! Now, for YOUR answer, ALL census information to date

is obsolete. But I think we can be pretty certain that cities in CA will be included in the 2010 list and this goes for your little 'side kick,' 'Romulite.'


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tent-city20-2009mar20,0,4125317.story

[JVS]

122. So you don't have evidence.

[Fire1]

123. Evidence will be in the 2010 census which will bear out my

claim to the contrary of your buddy's claim.

[JVS]

124. I doubt it will. It isn't as though the mortgage crisis hasn't effected Detroit much.

[Fire1]

125. Noone alluded to such as that was not the point.

[nonconformist]

126. Did you seriously just post that as "proof"?

200 homeless in LA living in a tent city? And that's more proof than the 2007 census, which wasn't even released until late last year (and considered the most recent statistics, by the way). All census data is obsolete, lol. Are you not aware that MICHIGAN has been disproportionately affected by the economic crisis, more so than any other state? Are you seriously claiming that Los Angeles is in worst shape than Detroit?

As for the homeless...

http://sacreddetroit.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/homelessness-in-detroit/

According to Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries:

* In the Detroit area, there are at least 3,700 people in need of emergency shelter on any given night. To meet the need, there should be 1,400 more beds available.

* There are less than 940 transitional housing beds for over 5,086 homeless men, women and children per night.

* Over 2,000 people live on the streets each night in abandoned buildings or “double up” with family or friends.

* Over 10,000 families in Wayne County will become homeless at least once during the next year.

[JVS]

128. Oh shit! Now a native Detroiter has been provoked.

I'm just a well-wisher whose grandparents lived there. I really think some people don't have a grasp on the profound effect of decades of poverty. Sure times are tough, but a couple bad years for LA isn't going to transform the city into a place that is literally crumbling (with exceptions like Grosse Pointe and some of the more moderately well to do areas)

[Fire1]

131. If you're going to intrude in someone else's interaction the

least you could do is read the applicable posts. IOW, I wasn't talking to you.

[nonconformist]

132. Hello, it's a fucking message board.

You stated that Detroit wasn't the poorest city, the poorest city was in fact CALIFORNIA. Heh. You were asked to prove it with a link, like you demanded the proof about Detroit (and got). *I* even asked you for a link up thread. If you don't want anyone to "intrude" on your interaction, take it to private message.

[Fire1]

133. You just confirmed that you did not read b/c I made no such

comparison. On the contrary, I said the cities in CA would rank lower on that list if for no other reason than tax base, alone. That is not a comparison.

[nonconformist]

134. Backpeddling?

You responded to the post that said that Detroit was the poorest city in America with "excuse me, provide a link to your info" and the preceeded to say the poster was spewing bullshit, then you denounced the census. To prove your point, you posted an article about a tent city in LA.

I think you're kinda... crazy.

[Fire1]

139. I don't think you can read.

[Romulox]

95. I guess we'll set aside the *minor* fact that California isn't a city for the moment.

:hi: :rofl:

[JVS]

96. How can you be so callous in the face of CA suffering from losses in home equity...

when in Detroit they are merely suffering from decades of poverty during which the houses have not only lost equity but have fallen into ruin. You're heartless! ;-)

[Fire1]

98. For once you're correct. The STATE does include the

financial difficulties of the CITIES within.

[AngryAmish]

113. You forgot Poland

[WilliamPitt]

88. *snarf*

:)

[Romulox]

90. You can't be this dim. You MUST be trolling. Thanks for the kick, at least. nt

[Fire1]

91. YOU obviously are that 'dim.'

[Romulox]

94. You asked for the link; you got it. You don't like what it said, so its feet stomping time!

[Fire1]

97. You made a claim based on obsolete information and/or

data. It only takes the most recent news worthy information to dispute your claim. You have nothing substantial to contribute to this thread and know nothing of which you speak.

[Romulox]

99. Still waiting for YOU to present any data to the contrary. You've had quite some time already.

Sorry that you're coming up short. I know it's frustrating. :hi:

[Barack_America]

104. Detroit, Cleveland and Miami are statistically tied.

According the US Census Bureau.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/acs-09.pdf

Check out page 13.

Miami city, FL ............... 29,075 1,916
Cleveland city, OH............ 28,512 1,654
Detroit city, MI ..............28,097 1,138

The first column is the average income and the second column is the MOE in determining the average income.

Therefore, you are both technically right. Detroit technically has the lowest average income, but with the margin of error it could actually be either Cleveland or Miami. In the 2006 study, I believe Cleveland was the winner overall.

Now can we end this?

[JVS]

105. But what about all the poverty stricken big cities in California?

[Barack_America]

109. To be fair, I would imagine the 2007 Census does not include the foreclosure crisis.

It will be interesting to see which cities make it into the Top10 poorest when the new stats come out.

Truth is that this economy is in such a rapid tailspin that it could be hard to pinpoint the poorest cities.

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle and all that, you know?

[JVS]

110. Also to be fair, home foreclosures is not quantified in per capita income statistics.

nor are home values.

[Barack_America]

111. Ah yes, but I would imagine that the link between per capita income and foreclosure rate...

...is quite strong, no?

And I would imagine that our foreclosure rates might tell us something about what people in particular areas are earning, no? A lot of this nation's foreclosures are due to sub-prime mortgages, but not all.

[AngryAmish]

114. or Poland

[Fire1]

106. It won't take much time but you have yet to produce data for

YOUR claim. Not obsolete data. When I return from my class, I will provide.

[Romulox]

107. Dude. Are you on heavy painkillers or something? It's at the top of this subthread.

[Barack_America]

112. My response thread.

If I'm going to keep bumping this thread (and those BS youtube videos), I might as well link this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5476363

That blog will tell you the truth about Detroit.

[WI_DEM]

115. "As Detroit goes so does the rest of the country" Detroit has been dying for decades

[PM7nj]

118. Detroit has looked like that for 30 years. Nothing new. nt

[salin]

141. not true.

I describe the early decay (early nineties) from fifteen years ago. Yes there has been a decline over the years - but that is the potent point here. The slow decline that becomes a severe (and in some places total decline) is a harbinger for other communities in earlier stages of decline.

[upi402]

136. Bureaucratic group-think is a very real problem

It's time for banks and government to stop with the "stuck on stupid" way of doing things. Time to get efficient and rational.

[Doremus]

137. That guy is an ass. nt

[salin]

142. I watched without volume...

and I won't watch again to give credit to rw explanations for such serious decline. However, watching without commentary, I found it powerful and tragic. Perhaps it is my connection to the city and working there in the earlier of decline (by 1992 or 1993 there were, on average, 3 abandoned homes per block). Seeing this - knowing of the extreme economic decline of the manufacturing sector since that time - and having revisited the city at the turn of the decade (when the abandoned buildings seemed to exist at a far higher rate than had been the case seven years earlier) - I found the video (without sound) to be profound. There are many urban (and rural) communities and neighborhoods that are falling into the early decline stage that I saw more than fifteen years ago in Detroit. Just a rebound in the stock market (the odd way that we now seem to measure the health of our economy) will not change the tragectory. I view this as a harbinger.

Perhaps a similar video- ala capturing similar visuals in Detroit- but with a different commentary per root economic causes - is being called for.

[Doremus]

143. Smart move. ;)

You were spared his verbal diarrhea, kudos. :thumbsup: