Detroit - what happened since the bancrupcy?

[John_A]

Hi, there was a lot of newsarticles in Europe about Detroit and the financial crisis that led up to the bancrupcy last year.
But it was a while ago since I heard anything.
Do any of you live there and had opportunities to portrait how this mess have affected people in Detroit?

 

[ToddB]

Detroit is a waste land. Entire city blocks of homes completely abandon and gutted for copper and othe scraps that can be sold. The city is completely broke and can't pay pensions from years past. The whole state of Michigam relied on a single industry with no back up plane in case the automotive went somewhere else as it did. Leaving it in the state of shambles.

 

[sagai]

There is water. People soon start appreciate places where water is.

 

[gleaf]

I did not understand just how hard times are until I saw the huge stamping plant of my youth empty with a for rent free sign.
Why, the owner knows that free rent and your insure it is better than total loss on the property......
That is hard times.

 

[DWThomas]

I'm thinking I recently heard that the Detroit bankruptcy problems are pretty much under control, and now some investment group is about to plow some money into the city to turn parts of it around. I think Detroit was just a mega-sized example of the sorts of problems that have affected many one industry towns. Here in Pennsylvania we have seen such places take a lot longer to be built back up than to fall down. The anthracite coal region has been showing some new small industry and some general fixing up in the last decade or so, but it plummeted into disaster fifty years ago. Closer to me outside of Philadelphia in the Schuylkill River Valley, towns like Phoenixville, Pottstown, Birdsboro and Reading which used to be vibrant places involved with iron and steel, railroads, and textiles have been badly degraded since at least the 70s, but some are beginning to turn around at least a little.

Of course for a century or more industry has extracted resources until they ran out, dumped waste wherever they felt like, then walked away. All that's new is now it's being done with human resources.

 

[Sirius Glass]

The second thread about Detroit in 2 weeks. Detroit is part of Canada now. We here at APUG donated it to them at that time, on the condition that they took the inhabitants with the real estate. We rejected a land-only donation. Riparian rights were included.

One of the best economic moves made by APUG!

 

[winger]

On Undercover Boss last night, the "boss" was the mayor of Pittsburgh. According to the little blurb at the beginning, when the steel industry went close to belly up in the 70s, unemployment in Pittsburgh was waaayyyyyy worse than Detroit's was recently. Pittsburgh has been coming back industry-wise (more health care, universities, not all one thing). I've never been to Detroit, but how an area survives a downturn depends on varied people stepping up, I think. One person or one industry won't cut it today.

 

[blockend]

Northern England suffered similar problems in the 1970s and 80s. Coal, steel production, car making and textile manufacturing died, leaving communities without any support and social problems escalated. It took time to turn things round, and there are still pockets of deprivation, but the cities of the north have been transformed into vibrant places. The monolithic industries which caused cities like Detroit to be built will never return, the only alternative is to diversify and reinvent themselves out of the rubble. That takes strong leadership and initiative.

 

[RattyMouse]

I could not believe the enormous amount of wreckage that Detroit had become during my first drive through that city. Mile after mile after mile after mile of burned out buildings, stripped cars, dead animals in the streets, gang bangers hanging out, etc. Even THE worst parts of Chicago look ages better than what I saw in Detroit.

EVERYONE who can, has left Detroit leaving only those who are incapable of escaping that urban hellhole. That does not leave much material to work with to bring back a healthy population.

 

[eddie]

I seem to recall Detroit offering free homes to writers, with fix-up money, for the promise of staying one year. I don't know how that project went, but it's not unusual for cities (in similar situations) to do this for artists, and other creatives. Get a few then, suddenly, there's a coffee shop... a gallery... used furniture stores... For the artists, it's practically free living/working space.
I know Johnstown, PA did (maybe still does) this to create an arts district. I was approached with an offer, a few years ago. It was tempting. Low cost, low interest, grants, etc. Once beautiful homes, now dilapidated, but with huge potential.