yea, i'm sorry, the comments on articles re: detroit end up reading like the side-boob gazette (read huffpo) sensationalist blog articles. i work downtown, have lived downtown, and definitely grew up in metro-detroit. i've also lived in good 'ol sunnyvale, ca, and spent a fair amount of time in beloved sf (more homeless people than i have ever seen.) no doubt detroit isn't fairing well on tourism lists, but fer fuck's-sake, can we end the zombie ruin porn shit?
a lot of people and a lot of history have been here a long time. rebuilding a city takes time.
How much time? Detroit began its decline in the late 1960's, and the current financial crisis started in earnest in ~2004 when they lost a bunch of Federal funding[1]. The Tigers abandoned Tiger stadium (which was demolished in 2009, and the land remains undeveloped) and the Lions abandoned the Pontiac Silverdome in 2000 for the Comerica Park / Ford Field as part of the push to "revitalize" downtown Detroit. The Casinos were brought in because it would bring people downtown, and to generate tourism. To this day there are multi-level abandoned buildings just down the street from the Comerica Park / Ford Field complex[2][3]. Sorry, "it takes time" is a hollow answer in my book. If people really were working to turn the city around, that might hold some weight, but there are a lot of people looking to mooch off of it on the way down, while the suburbanites migrate further and further from Detroit-proper.
[1] The population fell below 1 million in the 2004 US Census. For comparison, the population of Detroit was around 2 million at its height.
[2] http://goo.gl/maps/oMzfZ
[3] http://goo.gl/maps/n7MIm
Rebuilding a city, on this scale, takes a LOT of time. Maybe our lifetimes, or two. It took a lifetime to grow Detroit from a small city to a big one. But this time, the game may be much more complicated.
Although my evidence is only anecdotal, I can see with my own eyes when I'm in and around Detroit (I live about an hour west) that people are working incredibly hard to turn the city around. But the statistics may not show this at first glance, and it could take many years for all of this hard work to even register on the national radar.
If we're here looking for simple answers, the only simple answer would be to let Detroit continue declining, and forget about it and deal with the blowback, whatever it may be, for however long it may last. Every other answer is hard.
i guess i take issue with these hollow ruin porn, zombie tourist trips, and your commentary is equally hollow:
> If people really were working to turn the city around...
people are working to turn the city around. people are migrating to the city to fix it and making progress -- but, i guess you may have missed that looking up stats on wikipedia and census.gov and google maps. the people of detroit are aware of the history of detroit.
But why rebuild it? What's the value proposition of Detroit? Why should capital -- both monetary and human -- flow to Detroit when there's already plenty of excess capacity available in other well-established American cities? And please don't say low COL, because that's a function of Detroit not attracting aforementioned capital.
To name a few from the top of my head:
1. Strategic location along the straits and along an international border.
2. Most (almost all) of the needed infrastructure is already in place.
3. Many reputable universities in the area, including two Big 10 schools.
4. An educated workforce (well, those who have stayed in-state).
5. Top-notch medical and robotics industry and innovators in the area.
6. Scenic travel destinations directly to the north (and west on Lake MI).
7. Situated smack-dab in the middle of the industrial shipping corridor between Chicago and Toronto
8. Excellent international shipping facilities and international port of entries (DTW, etc.)
That is a valid question. Why rebuild Detroit when there are other cities who are in much better shape financially and structurally. There are abandoned towns all over the mid-west and west coast. They were abandoned when the gold ran out, when the trains bypassed them, when the interstate was built. Detroit, AFAICT, is a manufacturing town in an era where manufacturing is no longer being done. At least not by humans. Robots don't care where they are situated (in the city or in the desert) and don't pay taxes.
I beg to differ. I think it is an asinine question (hence my "then just nuke it" quip below.) What's the alternative for the people that live here / have lived here a long time. They have history here, livelihood, businesses, family, roots... The people that live here will rebuild it, and they/we are. Armchair social engineering isn't really required or desired.
Yea I gotta agree. I've only ventured downtown Detroit once to go to the MDOT HQ. It's a bit awkward that it's surrounded by barbed wire, and the neighborhood around it doesn't look great at all.
I've also been around Baltimore, not the worst parts, but still, it isn't that much different.
I don't know where this Detroit people == zombies thing comes from. That can describe how a lot of people in the ghetto look.
a lot of people and a lot of history have been here a long time. rebuilding a city takes time.