On the bright side, were not Detroit.

[Gladys]

Life in Detroit | Photo Gallery - Yahoo! News

"Sixty years ago, Detroit, Michigan was the fifth-largest American city, home to 1.8 million. But as homicide rates skyrocketed and thousands of deserted homes became havens for the drug trade, the population dwindled to 713,000. Detroit is on the ropes again: At 4 p.m. EST today (2/19), officials will hold a press conference to disclose just how bad the city's insolvency problems are. Still, as these photos show, some still have not given up on Detroit, despite its grim cityscapes."

oh frack i screwed up the title. please change it to we're.

[seand]

Yes we have lots community gardens but noone has suggested huge swaths of the city to be used for commercial forrestry. We are not deactivating residential neighborhoods by turning off sewers and water mains, we are mad as hell at the prospect of property taxes based on what people actually do pay to live in our neighborhoods

[jester]

Cleveland is also happy that it is not Detroit.

[OldMama]

I flew through Detroit. You can see the empty overgrown areas that used to be neighborhoods. Sad.

[Gone]

High gas prices and dumb mayors killed Detroit. Sound familiar?

[mixiboi]

High gas prices and dumb mayors killed Detroit. Sound familiar?

Soviet Russia?

The report found the Motor City faces a cumulative cash deficit of more than $100 million by June 30, 2013 if "significant spending cuts" are not made. Detroit has $14 billion in employee retirement liabilities and unfunded pensions, and will need $1.9 billion over the next five years to pay off other long-term liabilities. The city has been running deficits every year since 2005, according to the review team.

[NickTheCage]

Isn't Detroit a liberal utopia with all their leftist policies?

What went wrong?

[lemko]

Detroit was once known as the "Paris of the Midwest." Detroit's about to become America's first major "ghost city." There is only one Chrysler plant that still builds cars within Detroit's city limits. Sad, because Detroit was one of America's richest cities 60 years ago. Now it is among its poorest.

[BarryG]

Cleveland is also happy that it is not Detroit.

Yes we have lots community gardens but noone has suggested huge swaths of the city to be used for commercial forrestry. We are not deactivating residential neighborhoods by turning off sewers and water mains, we are mad as hell at the prospect of property taxes based on what people actually do pay to live in our neighborhoods

There have also been proposals in Cleveland to use huge swaths of land adjacent to downtown for "urban" farming. Which at the scale proposed was actually just farming. When that becomes economically feasible near the core, you have big problems.

[fiveomar]

Isn't Detroit a liberal utopia with all their leftist policies?

What went wrong?

Unions.

[seand]

I flew through Detroit. You can see the empty overgrown areas that used to be neighborhoods. Sad.

Yes flying into Detroit is visually striking. There are so many areas of abandonment around the core and actually fairly prosperous suburbs around it at the horizon but the sprawl of abandonment seems go on forever. Meanwhile on the other side of the river in Windsor in Canada, its a very tidy neatly organized little city that promptly ends and turns to cornfields at the edge of town. Its a striking difference the US side and the Canadian side.

The have unions in Japanese and South Korean factories, by the way. And even union assembly plants for Japanese manufacturers here in the US these days. And of course most German car manufacturers are union as well. But you had both a corporate management as well as an outdated union leadership that refused to adapt to changing consumer demands, new technologies, a changing world economy till it was too late.

[mixiboi]

Isn't Detroit a liberal utopia with all their leftist policies?

What went wrong?

They put all their eggs in one basket. That is the biggest flaw in building any city around one industry or company.

[NickTheCage]

They put all their eggs in one basket. That is the biggest flaw in building any city around one industry or company.

Lol ... it was the leftist utopian policies that drove out other industries and/or de-incentivized other companies from locating there.

[Geno]

Lol ... it was the leftist utopian policies that drove out other industries and/or de-incentivized other companies from locating there.

How come places that are actually much farther to the "left" than the US, like Sweden or France or Canada, have healthy cities? Maybe US policies in general are very hostile toward pre war cities and towns? It's certsainly much more complex than the old left/right dichotomy.

[Marquis]

Unions.

Or Hitler.

[billy ross]

How come places that are actually much farther to the "left" than the US, like Sweden or France or Canada, have healthy cities? Maybe US policies in general are very hostile toward pre war cities and towns? It's certsainly much more complex than the old left/right dichotomy.

In the US older cities were at a huge disadvantage during deindustrialization. The legacy costs to this day encourage people to run away to the suburbs. Detroit to me is an example of what happens when too many people decide that they'd rather skip town for the suburbs. Then you don't have enough people left to man the oars.

[NickTheCage]

How come places that are actually much farther to the "left" than the US, like Sweden or France or Canada, have healthy cities? Maybe US policies in general are very hostile toward pre war cities and towns? It's certsainly much more complex than the old left/right dichotomy.

Are you really this clueless?

France and it's cities are healthy?

Montreal and Toronto are healthy? The main industry of Canada that keeps it somewhat 'healthy' is non-green energy.

[Geno]

Are you really this clueless?

France and it's cities are healthy?


Montreal and Toronto are healthy? The main industry of Canada that keeps it somewhat 'healthy' is non-green energy.

Are you really this condescending? I lived in Watertown, NY. When you crossed into Canada, the first town on the other side, Kingston, looked like Oz compared to sagging, depressing Watertown. When I lived in Europe, their cities were, for the most part, healthy and vibrant. When I returned to Philadelphia and saw miles of bombed out ruins, it looked to me like WE lost WWII. Our policies at a national level are anti urban.

[Hospitalitygirl]

Are you really this condescending? I lived in Watertown, NY. When you crossed into Canada, the first town on the other side, Kingston, looked like Oz compared to sagging, depressing Watertown. When I lived in Europe, their cities were, for the most part, healthy and vibrant. When I returned to Philadelphia and saw miles of bombed out ruins, it looked to me like WE lost WWII. Our policies at a national level are anti urban.

Our policies at a national level are largely anti-urban, yes, but the cities haven't often helped themselves with their own policies. But much of Detroit's demise had as much to do with the fact that it was a one-industry city, and the stewards of that industry did much to fall behind some of the rest of the world and offer at times a very inferior product. They've been playing "catch-up" ever since.

[seand]

Are you really this clueless?

France and it's cities are healthy?

Montreal and Toronto are healthy? The main industry of Canada that keeps it somewhat 'healthy' is non-green energy.

Holy exageration batman.

Canada has the eleventh-largest economy in the world (measured in US dollars at market exchange rates), is one of the world's wealthiest nations, and is a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Group of Eight (G8). As with other developed nations, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three quarters of Canadians.[8] Canada is unusual among developed countries in the importance of the primary sector, with the logging and oil industries being two of Canada's most important. Canada also has a sizable manufacturing sector, centered in Central Canada, with the automobile industry and aircraft industry especially important. With a long coastal line, Canada has the 8th largest commercial fishing and seafood industry in the world.[9][10]

Economy of Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

FWIW, I have a former in-law from MI who qualified for NAFTA education funding when the auto-related manufacturing job he had disembarked for Canada in the early aughts.