<p>It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Detroit but it’s amazing to me the transition that’s happening in that city with the industrial decline and population decline.</p>
<p>The entire city is ‘downsizing’. Old buildings and huge swaths of homes are being abandoned and bulldozed and not replaced. There are sections of the city apparently returning to nature as entire neighborhoods are razed.</p>
<p>I’ve taken a look at a lot of this via Google street view and Bing aerial view and it’s incredible to see the combination of destruction in the homes that are currently boarded up or burnt out shells and the large empty areas that have been dozed even though they’re in the inner city area.</p>
<p>I think this is something people will be reading about in history books at some point but it’s happening now. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this economically, politically, and socially but we may have our own interpretations of what those lessons are.</p>
<p>Has anyone else noticed this? If you find this of interest, take a virtual look at Detroit using the tools I mentioned. I think it’s pretty interesting and of course sad at the same time.</p>
Uh…I don’t think they’re being bulldozed. I don’t think they even have the money to do that. I happened to catch a Detroit newscast recently, where they were showing a dead boulevard tree next to an elementary school. It looked like it was ready to fall down, but the city wouldn’t cut it down. I think some parents ended up taking it down.</p>
<p>A lot of the homes are no longer there so I assume they were dozed - they were at least razed somehow. I’ve also read of programs the city has of dozing some areas of homes to reduce the crime associated with a bunch of empty houses. I read that the mayor is proposing dozing about 25% of the city to end up saving the city money in not having to support those areas with infrastructure.</p>
<p>I read they were going to do this a few months ago. I thought it was a really ingenious solution to a problem that wasn’t going to fix itself. Detroit may find it’s way, again. But, for now, it’s like the old ghost towns out west.</p>
<p>It is a remarkable piece of history, but we really have this rush to judgement these days, maybe because of such fast media, in trying to figure out what things mean. I mean, the obvious end of a business, but this seems to have been happening since I was in high school in the early 80’s. So, it can’t be that suprising. And, yet, it seems that it is.</p>
<p>interesting- I am headed there next month for a short pleasure trip- I think that will be the farthest east I have ever been.
( to visit a friend who grew up there & recently moved back & to see a concert)
I’m really looking forward to it ( Ok I admit it was not the first place I thought of for a vacation, but I couldn’t get tix to Seattle)</p>
<p>Detroit’s no average city given its history that’s had such a huge impact on the economy of the USA as well as other social effects that it influenced such as worker migration from the south and other areas, union influence, and other areas which is one of the reaosons I find it so interesting - that as well as the degree of change it’s going through. It was the ‘silicon valley’ of automobile and associated manufacturers.</p>
<p>ek4 - I thought of you when I posted this thread since I remembered you were headed there. Maybe you can report on your impressions.</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, did you watch Detroit 187? A really good show that got canceled too soon in my opinion, but one of the wonderful things about was its very real depiction of Detroit. As a preservationist, I found a surprising amount of beauty and grandeur in the decay of Detroit.</p>
<p>No - I’ve not heard of Detroit 187. I’ll look for it online.</p>
<p>In cruising around Detroit (virtually) I’ve come across some very nice buildings, churches, etc. that are now just boarded up. Almost entire streets of businesses are just boarded up. And there are a number of the old factory buildings still there but abandoned. Some of these have quite a history to them, sometimes having had multiple auto manufacturers use them over time including many a lot of people might not be familiar with like Hupmobile, Hudson, and dozens of others.</p>
<p>I read about the decline in the population in the NYT & having to deal with what the census showed. </p>
<p>Detroit Dog Rescue had a feature on NBC Nightly News recently and they were down to their last $43.00! They didn’t ask for donations but collected quite a bit due to their exposure on NBC! Detroit Dog Rescue has a FB page as well. People just leave the city and abandon their dogs, very sad!</p>
<p>I lived on the edge of Detroit during the '67 riots. Like many other families, mine moved to the northern suburbs in the mid 70’s. I went to college in Flint, and I work in Detroit.</p>
<p>I will say that there are good things about Detroit. It was far more vibrant and beautiful when my dad grew up there & my mom moved there for nurse’s training in the 50’s. The slow decay has left behind a legacy of crumbling beauty that has its pockets of vitality. I listened to a live feed of our wonderful Detroit Symphony Orchestra while working today. There is a strong current music scene (S & H often go to Detroit for concerts), and there are many cultural activities. The Detroit Institute of Arts is great, and there is a cool local artist scene. </p>
<p>The challenges to the city are many, though. There is a legacy of corruption in the city management, and the school system is one of the very worst in the country. The jobless rate in the city is overwhelming. The fact that there are so many open areas within the city is a big problem, because providing city services such as police, fire, and trash collection to a spread-out area with a declining population presents big financial problems. Foreclosures and flight have contributed to the erosion of the tax base. </p>
<p>Flint, on the other hand, has been slowly moving in a positive direction. They have had some innovative programs aimed at redeveloping the downtown area. There have always been excellent areas of Flint that have not been in decline (even now), and those areas border on downtown, which is fortunate for the city. The worst part of Flint is the north side … unlike Detroit, which has “worst parts” sprinkled throughout. Flint is quite a bit smaller than Detroit to begin with. Even though the joke when I was in school was that Detroit was the a<strong>h</strong>e of America & Flint was 60 miles up it, I never really thought Flint as a whole was all that bad.</p>
<p>You have now had your Michigan current issues lesson courtesy of Kelsmom.</p>
<p>Im going to the Fox theatre( which looks beautiful) to see Eddie Vedder play the ukulele in about another month.
The Pearl Jam fans have a block of rooms at the Renaissance Center & I am also going to stay closer to my friend who lives just outside Dearborn.
:)</p>
<p>So how does Detroit balance its books? It appears even cities that are growing tend to spend more than they take in especially when you factor in things like pension liability. When a city actually shrinks what do they do? Has local government scaled down enough to make a difference?</p>