"Last night I tried to post an image of Detroit, but it didn't work too well, and I deleted it. But, go to Google earth or one of those satellite dealos, and put in Detroit. And then scan in close. Those blocks and blocks of empty space used to be neighborhoods filled with houses. A city that used to have over two million citizens now has eight-hundred thousand and change. The city is broke, and mired in scandals. Yet, the city council feels the need to address Jay Leno's charitable gesture. "
More - Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline, a Time photo series.
I live in Windsor so I've watched Detroit deteriorate for decades. Its true what they say ... people get the government they deserve.
Have these people met Dalton McGuinty?
I just google map'd Detroit and it is utterly amazing!!
Block after block after block with no houses, one house, two houses..........
And this is two and three blocks from the new ball park. Amazing!
I've done the Google satellite view of Detroit before. It's is very disturbing to see entire city blocks with only a couple houses on them. I used to walk around these areas a few years back and it's an eye opener believe me to see weeds coming out of cracks the sidewalk that are 3 feet tall. Houses just falling down. You feel the presence of what used to be a busy city. It's like a ghost town feeling. If you ever get to see an interview that makes its rounds on PBS about Lilly Tomlin growing up in Detroit you should watch it. Lots of "then and now" stuff.
Here's a link to some photos of the beauty of the fall of Detroit. It's worth the look.
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089,00.html
Detroit's a fixer-upper. If the feds are buying it, maybe they're planning to flip it. Sell it to Canada? (Nah, that would be too enterprising.)
I guess the locals will have to pray for a motown revival.
There is no specific reason for the auto industry to be in Detroit, other than Henry Ford lived in the area....no different than Microsoft didnt need to be in Seattle, it was in Albequerque NM for some time. Paul Allen and Bill Gates grew up in Seattle and they moved "home".
Point is, the city will be revived when someone from Detroit or who really likes Detroit starts to build a business there. Sad truth to say but culture is supported by wealth....Richard Florida gets some of it right but it is essentially a bet that the cultural that is welcomed will produce something of interest to those outside of the area. The formula is effectively the same, good neighborhoods, decent schools and good "experience" that would make ou want ot come back as opposed to fleeing to somewhere else.
Back to the point, does anyone believe that Detroit city council is focussed on those things, or are they focussed on something else.
Most industries start in a place because of the minds that were there, those that follow happen because there is now infrastructure. Last example, Silicon Valley exists because of Hewlett and Packard and their garage....if they had lived in New Orleans it would have been called Silicon Delta....but then you have to assume that the same community that spawned them would have existed in New Orelans.
Detroit is only as dead as its people let it be in the long run.
http://www.white-history.com/hwrdet4a.htm
Took a look at real estate prices in the core and surrounding areas. Not one property over a million.
Found one place across the road from the river. Nine bedrooms, five bathrooms, 6000 sq ft on a one acre lot. Nice looking neighbourhood and not a fixer upper.
$200,000
Huh?
The kind of politics (union friendly, high tax etc.) destroyed Detroit is now being practiced in Washington.
A left view of our future cities.
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I've been to Detroit. It looks like an African city.
I wonder if urban wildlife is establishing itself there. Could be some good hunting.
Thanks for the link, Kate.
Detroit is liberal policy in action. It's so very sad. Detroit has no good reason for such epic failure. The waterfront, it's proximity to Canada and Windsor. Michigan is a beautiful state.
Gus, there is an urban farming movement in Detroit.
Think about what's underneath all those abandoned houses. There are hundreds of thousands of miles of water, sewer, gas, and electrical lines, all waiting for someone to accidentally rupture them. The land has been so badly contaminated, you couldn't even turn it back to farmland.
The only way to truly abandon this area is to cover it with a concrete dome, just like Chernobyl.
An alternative might be some sort of gangster theme park, or "Running Man" reality show. Maybe a giant paintball facility, with live ammo optional.
I'm thinking, penal colony.
Check out "The ruins of Detroit" on this sight. It's a fascinating story of decline.
http://detroityes.com/home.htm
Interesting that the City has been trying for years to take over thousands of dilapidated properties
for renewal projects. They cannot however because the law does not permit foreclosure for any reason until the owner has had an opportunity to remedy the situation. Problem is, the owners left town decades ago and cannot be located.
Atric- By the sound of things, there aren't many people left to occupy renewal projects.
I think one of the main causes of Detroit's collapse has been a massive misinformation campaign against Detroit-built cars. I just checked out a 2009 Corvette ZR1. It has over 600 HP, hits 130 MPH in a 1/4 mile, and stops from 60 MPH in 113 feet. Guess what? It gets 25 MPG highway. Anyone who says Detroit iron is inferior to foreign is misinformed, or lying.
In 1970, Detroit built a car that went almost as fast as the new Corvette, but it got 5 MPG highway. It took a professional driver to handle its full potential, and wasn't much fun to drive more than a couple hundred miles.
I'd say there've been some pretty bright engineers doing some very good work, right there in Detroit. It would be a terrible shame to lose those guys. Those guys are ripe for the picking, by Toyota, Honda, et al.
Agree dp but I think the problem lies elsewhere.
"Black day in July" in the '60s when the Negroes burned down their own homes and terrorized the entire city was the turning point. Federal, State and local governments bent over backwards to appease them, throwing all kinds of goodies at them and making all kinds of concessions. Then along come Johnson with his Civil Rights legislation and it's been downhill ever since . The Whites moved even farther away from the city and the core just deteriorated until it's what it is today. Living about 50 miles from Detroit, we have often been invited to attend shows and such at the Renaissance Center. We, and others we know continually decline as quite frankly feel in grave danger anywhere in the city at night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjzpx_jUUA0
Funny! 1970s American cars - damning review: Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld - BBC autos
Hilarious video showing how out of touch Detroit was during the oil crisis of the 1970s.
The prevailing wisdom hearkens back to this age, whether or not the same is true today.
Hence Detroits miserable decline. But then it has been a long time since Motown tunes ruled the airwaves.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group "True North"
Two words: LeBreton Flats. The Ottawa types here know what I'm referring to. Acres and acres of homes were expropriated by the Government and then flattened, and then left for decades. Only developments have been the bus lanes and the new War Museaum.
You can see it on Google as well.
All in the name of improvement.
dp 11:03AM: This is promising... I'm thinking Mantracker (see next item down).
According to Wikipedia, there are 44,000 abandoned homes within the Detroit city limits....thats nearly the number of homes in Saskatoon sitting abandoned within their city limits :D
The claim about Detroit shrinking isn't quite accurate...within "Detroit" its shrunk since its 1950 high of 1.8 mil, but the Urban and Metro areas have grown substantially (i.e suburbia). There is an overhead picture of Detroit as well that shows the per capita income....the entire city core is absolutely dominated by those earning less than 20,000$ a year.
Perhaps so enterprising young photographer should go to Oshawa Ontario and take pictures of that lovely little town. It would be interesting to do a before and after GM comparison in a few years.
"They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshýd gloried and drank deep"
I've seen this in Brooklyn and in parts of Washington, DC, as well.
Hmm, looking at Saskatoon data I'm mistaken. Approximately half of Saskatoon's homes could fit into Detroits' abandoned ones.
I saw a documentary last fall on Cleveland where the situation is similar. Many inner city houses were foreclosed on and instead of buying up cheap deals, the brainless locals simply broke in and gutted out anything metallic and hauled it to the scrap yard for a couple of bucks. The damaged houses were write offs and torn down.
Last June I drove a school bus of Grade 11 students to Detroit for a two day service project. Being on the ground is even more enlightening. Driving across town you could go from urban blight to urban progress just crossing the line from one jurisdiction to another. We came upon one scene which I won't forget. There was an amnesty program, over 2 days, for non violent parole offendees. There were thousands, and I don't exaggerate, of people lined up to get there 'record' cleaned up. Drunks wandered the streets. People were friendly and I didn't feel threatened but then we didn't go out to the worst areas after dark. I wonder if liberals actually have a grip on reality and the effects of their policies.
I, until recently, live in Detroit. And, I worked down town. It isn't the city center that is dangerous - it is the neighborhoods. But, I wouldn't send anyone into the city who didn't know their way around. Much too easy to make a wrong turn.
As I said, there are some great things about Detroit. That is what makes what is happening there all the worse.
The first time I saw pictures like this was Chernobyl.
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/
and the photographer's bio is here (an interesting lady)
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/garage.html
just think those marvelous democrats have been running detroit for many years now. jeez they a really competent. they also have the lowest literacy rate in the u.s.
Perhaps the People's Republic of China comes to the rescue.....not just by saying NO to KYOTO....
but by being the voice of reason.....again....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29675114
Now Owebambam and Pelosi/Reid will know the feeling of getting turned down for a loan.....
Detroit = Johannesburg
Yup the “Motor City”………….Hmmmm wonder why Obamba is so committed to bailing out the auto industry and allocating such an outrageous stimulus bill with Michigan as a top recipient?
Could have been my hometown but my parents decided to move to the Canadian side in the 40's.I believe one of those links also shows the Detroit Yacht club tumbling down. Another gorgeous building reminiscent of the Roaring 20's and the rum running across the river. Windsor thrived on producing the booze.
Interesting to know what it takes to keep a city alive.
For awhile in Detroit it was booze and cars.
dp...are you talking about the Turbine?
Occasionally, my family and I would mosey over to Detroit when we lived in Southwestern Ontario. The city core wasn't bad -- we liked Greektown, the Art Gallery, and the baseball games at Comerica Park -- and Detroit was definitely more exciting than the place we lived in.
But once you left the core, on the way for instance to Grosse Pointe (where there was a good second-hand clothing store from the discards of the wealthy residents) the drive along Jefferson Avenue was like entering a war zone: block after block of abandoned and derelict buildings, broken concrete, glass shards, exposed iron rods, etc.: a concrete jungle.
Amazingly, once you drove between the two concrete markers that announced your entry into Grosse Pointe, everything changed: blocks and blocks of gracious, tree-lined streets lined with grand houses surrounded by manicured lawns and gardens and, if your house happened to be located on Lakeshore Drive, a view of the Detroit Yacht Club with a fleet of junior club boats in full sail.
Detroit is a city of stark contrasts, which definitely feels like nobody's in charge -- at least nobody who cares about Detroit. There's a depressing inertia to it. After the flaming cheese and "OOPA!" in Greektown, it always felt good to cross back into Ontari-ari-ario.
The issue with the liberal left is that they have no concept of the consequences of radical demographics shifting.
Yes of course some fruity economics professor can spend government grant money to explain in a flowery 5000 page report that somehow, underprivileged minorities have again been the whipping boys of white Europeans causing the decay of a once prosperous city.
The reality of Detroit is that it is a city with an 83% black majority.
http://www.uwec.edu/freitard/GroupAndMinority/Detroit/Demographics/demo.html
That is an 83% majority with the privileges of a “minority” through affirmative action programs and black civil rights.
The rapid and enormous demographic shift from skilled workers to under skilled and in many cases welfare dependant demographics, mirrors the Mugabe white farm takeovers by unskilled black (privileged by nationality) workers of Zimbabwe.
The parallel extends to South Africa and now bankrupt California. What the 5000 page report will never explain in rational down to earth terms, is that when you shift 10% of Mexico’s poor and unskilled into California, you now have a 50% and growing Mexican Latino population and have in a sense become a “little Mexico”. In a nutshell – bankrupt, fraught with gangs and violence, newly acquired diseases and an infrastructure maintained by third world mentalities.
This started happening in Detroit in the 1960’s with mass migration from the south for labor manufacturing jobs, resulting in the inevitable white flight of the skilled. This inevitable white flight is a human reality practiced across the globe regardless of country politics or religion, and no amount of wasteful government multicultural propaganda will ever change that.
The results of multiculturalism and any rapid demographic shifting from poor and unskilled cultures will result in a Detroit every time! No surprises here.
Leno offered to do a free stand up show in Detroit (and other cities). Why is anyone surprised that the Detroit City Council wants to get involved. The head of that Council is the wife of John Conyers. All want to make sure they get their share!
Here's my bet! The day after the event, no matter the venue, there will be complaints by folks who bought tickets and then were not allowed in because the tickets were counterfeit. This is the most basic of inner city scams. There may even be riots/fights at the event, although, they will not be reported in our state media.
Thanks, Knight 99, for your stats on Detroit: 83% black.
Now, why aren't they taking care of Detroit? Detroit's decline has much less to do with the "underprivileged minorities [being] the whipping boys of white Europeans" than with the entitled blacks who have been the recipients of affirmative action and a multitude of "multiculturalism" programs, as you point out.
As long as the black people of Detroit see themselves as eternal "victims," with the charitable largesse of society always meaning handouts for them rather than their giving a helping hand and going up to bat for the betterment of their city, it's never going to happen.
It's time to give back and not always expect to be on the receiving end.
Black Mamba
There's a reason we gave Detroit back in 1814...
From Wikipedia (yeah, I know, but I think it can get this right: "Politically, the city consistently supports the Democratic Party in state and national elections (local election are nonpartisan). According to a study released by the Bay Area Center for Voting Research, Detroit is the most liberal large city in America,[106] measuring only the percentage of city residents who voted for the Democratic Party."
'Nuff said.
Sadly more than half the deterioration looks like downright vandalism. That dentists office for example and the school that was closed on 2005.
The work of renovation is virtually all but impossible, when vandals have had their day.
A long time since I passed through Detroit on my way from Northern Ontario to Windsor.
An in depth study on what makes for a collapse of a structure and possible relationship to that old no no- race, will certainly not be in the offing.
Last June I drove a school bus of Grade 11 students to Detroit for a two day service project. Being on the ground is even more enlightening. Driving across town you could go from urban blight to urban progress just crossing the line from one jurisdiction to another. We came upon one scene which I won't forget. There was an amnesty program, over 2 days, for non violent parole offendees. There were thousands, and I don't exaggerate, of people lined up to get there 'record' cleaned up. Drunks wandered the streets. People were friendly and I didn't feel threatened but then we didn't go out to the worst areas after dark. I wonder if liberals actually have a grip on reality and the effects of their policies.
Posted by: batb>
“It's time to give back and not always expect to be on the receiving end.”
I agree fully! This now comes to the point of my assessment of the “un-capitalist” auto industry bailouts and the outrageously stupid for main street America stimulus package. It targets economically failing states such as Michigan and California, simply because of the unwise demographic pandering by the socialist agenda of American Democratic politics.
Make the commander and chief a not so closet bigot, and I would say the American middle class (the heart and soul of America) is in for a very rough ride. All to pay for idealism that is as un-American as the Soviet Union was.
You can follow the obvious trend, beginning with the Obamba/ Acorn lawsuits to force banks to give subprime loans to otherwise ineligible minorities in the late 90’s through the false housing bubble and eventual economic collapse. The same culprits who are now in charge pretend to fix the problems they themselves helped create with unreasonable mortgage & auto bailouts to the “minority” states and cities.
Certainly the banks and wall street played their greedy roll, the issue for me is that the instigators become blameless and even the unsung heroes as they deepen the problems of the US for the benefit of a few that never deserved what they didn’t earn.