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Well if they keep electing the same leaders, I don't expect a recovery. It will become an empty wasteland.

 whembly wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Which... seems to be unconstitutional...

Why do you think it would be Unconstitutional?

Remember... this is the city of Detroit. Let's say the Detroit's pension / benefits plans are truly shielded. How is Detroit going to pay for that? Will they ask the rest of the state to honor that now? (as the State law implies).

Did the rest of MI sign off those contracts? Did the rest of MI vote for the Detroit leaders? No...

See my drift?

No, I don't.

Please point specifically at the part of the constitution you think it violates.

 azazel the cat wrote:
Dammit, Canada has done relatively well about not buying toxic investments... and now you go an suggest we buy freakin' Detroit.

A hockey team that can actually win a Stanley Cup is too much to resist for Ontario! They'll pay anything.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Dammit, Canada has done relatively well about not buying toxic investments... and now you go an suggest we buy freakin' Detroit.

A hockey team that can actually win a Stanley Cup is too much to resist for Ontario! They'll pay anything.

Hey, don't lump the rest of Ontario in with those sad, sad pandas in Toronto!

You know....40K fans can have their very own Armageddon style Hive to play IG...or Orks....or SM....Detroit could be ground zero for the Zombie Apocalypse to.....

I vote for the biggest paintball field ever.

They could rent out the city to studios making post-apocalyptic movies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Dammit, Canada has done relatively well about not buying toxic investments... and now you go an suggest we buy freakin' Detroit.

Think of it this way. the place can't get worse. 30 years and it will have to have increased in value.

Every Canadian could now own their very own piece of the "American Dream". Just for $9.99 with a limit of two additional purchases plus shipping and handling, This once in a life time offer will never come again......

Jihadin wrote:Every Canadian could now own their very own piece of the "American Dream". Just for $9.99 with a limit of two additional purchases plus shipping and handling, This once in a life time offer will never come again......

The American Dream is well-past its 1976 expiry date.

Stop Az....your not going to ruin my perception of the American Dream

Its like disco!

That's one of the greatest Brits of all time, Eddie Izzard. Nice one

 Rented Tritium wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Which... seems to be unconstitutional...

Why do you think it would be Unconstitutional?

Remember... this is the city of Detroit. Let's say the Detroit's pension / benefits plans are truly shielded. How is Detroit going to pay for that? Will they ask the rest of the state to honor that now? (as the State law implies).

Did the rest of MI sign off those contracts? Did the rest of MI vote for the Detroit leaders? No...

See my drift?

No, I don't.

Please point specifically at the part of the constitution you think it violates.

Is said "seems to be unconstitutional"... but, that's probably too strongly worded.

I mean, the STATE could conceivably step in and assume the debt... but, it doesn't appear so.

Looks like this is going through and one thing I didn't realize... the state/municipal's pension are not covered by that pension protection entity. That's going to be ugly. o.O

 whembly wrote:

Is said "seems to be unconstitutional"... but, that's probably too strongly worded.

Right, so you didn't mean "Unconstitutional" you meant "improper" or "illegal".

 Grey Templar wrote:
I vote for the biggest paintball field ever.

They could rent out the city to studios making post-apocalyptic movies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Dammit, Canada has done relatively well about not buying toxic investments... and now you go an suggest we buy freakin' Detroit.

Think of it this way. the place can't get worse. 30 years and it will have to have increased in value.

It's definately a fixer-upper. Some are suggesting we could do a flip this house move and sell it back at a profit. A flip-this-Detroit if you will but I still think Southern Ontario needs those Red Wings. You can keep the Lions though.


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 azazel the cat wrote:

Jihadin wrote:Every Canadian could now own their very own piece of the "American Dream". Just for $9.99 with a limit of two additional purchases plus shipping and handling, This once in a life time offer will never come again......

The American Dream is well-past its 1976 expiry date.

1976? If the 80s weren't just a weird dream I don't know what they were.

Erm... wait... wut?

Detroit’s ruin was actually the end result of a conservative utopia??!?!

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755822/ns/msnbc-the_ed_show/vp/52532348#52532348

Who is that fat-headed idiot and how did they squeeze him into that suit?!

Interesting to make the comparison between Pittsburgh and Detroit. Not that long ago the two cities were both in largely the same place, having lost their core industries (cars and steel). For a bunch of reasons that I don't think I've heard anyone properly describe just yet, Pittsburgh found itself new economic reasons for existing, while Detroit has not.

It's because the reasons cannot be properly discussed in polite company.

 sebster wrote:
Interesting to make the comparison between Pittsburgh and Detroit. Not that long ago the two cities were both in largely the same place, having lost their core industries (cars and steel). For a bunch of reasons that I don't think I've heard anyone properly describe just yet, Pittsburgh found itself new economic reasons for existing, while Detroit has not.

Well you'd first have to decide which fate is worse. Spiraling into bankruptcy, or becoming hipster central

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
It's because the reasons cannot be properly discussed in polite company.

Fortunately we're the most impolite of company, so please expand...


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 LordofHats wrote:
Well you'd first have to decide which fate is worse. Spiraling into bankruptcy, or becoming hipster central

I'll take the crab juice.

 LordofHats wrote:

 sebster wrote:
Interesting to make the comparison between Pittsburgh and Detroit. Not that long ago the two cities were both in largely the same place, having lost their core industries (cars and steel). For a bunch of reasons that I don't think I've heard anyone properly describe just yet, Pittsburgh found itself new economic reasons for existing, while Detroit has not.

Well you'd first have to decide which fate is worse. Spiraling into bankruptcy, or becoming hipster central

This is a quandary. To quote Billy Zane: "what to do, what to do."

Now Taiwan is getting into the act. Man, this video wouldn't be allowed to be made in today's politically correct America.

CBS Detroit wrote:
Taiwan Video Pointedly Mocks Detroit’s Bankruptcy Filing

DETROIT (CBS Detroit) The city’s bankruptcy filing has put Detroit in the crosshairs of every comedian from Chicago to Chattanooga.

And now Taiwan is laughing.

A company called NMA Animation, a Taiwanese animation company that pokes fun at the news of the day in satiric fashion, posted a pointed You Tube video mocking Detroit and its financial troubles.

At one point, an M&M gets shot and it takes police an hour to show up; in another scene, the RenCen swirls into a toilet. President Barack Obama takes the city’s request for a bailout, rolls it into a joint and smokes it.

What do you think? Perhaps the best takeaway is to not take it personally. The same animators posted take-downs of the new royal baby, the steroid scandal in Major League Baseball, and protests in Egypt.

This group also famously produced a video “recreating” the time Elin Nordegren did/did not attack a philandering Tiger Woods with his own golf club.

Looks like it was Detroit’s turn.

 Breotan wrote:

At one point, an M&M gets shot and it takes police an hour to show up

That's true.....I do believe if I lived in Detroit my house be a "FoB"

 Jihadin wrote:

At one point, an M&M gets shot and it takes police an hour to show up

That's true.....I do believe if I lived in Detroit my house be a "FoB"

You'd be outnumbered... how many automated turrets do you have?

Better yet, it might be tactically sound:

 sebster wrote:
Interesting to make the comparison between Pittsburgh and Detroit. Not that long ago the two cities were both in largely the same place, having lost their core industries (cars and steel). For a bunch of reasons that I don't think I've heard anyone properly describe just yet, Pittsburgh found itself new economic reasons for existing, while Detroit has not.

Looking at various media outlets, blogs, etc. They are blaming the downfall of Detroit on a combination of paranoid white people who "fled" the city whenever the mass of african-americans moved into it seeking economic opportunities during the perceived height of the auto industry. When the legal economic opportunities dried up, the illegal ones opened up, bringing a huge swell in crime rates. Of course, once all the "good" people left, and the majority of the drugs went with them, so too did a lot of the crime (apparently)... Now we're left with a shell of a once great city, waiting to refind, and rebuild itself.


Honestly, I doubt that it will be rebuilt on the back of a newly energized steel industry coupled with a booming art community as Pittsburgh was. Though, if we (America) can save some of the great landmark architectural pieces of the City (United Artists Theater, the Michigan Central Station or whatever it was called, that huge tower that's been basically vacant since the 90s) there are a good number of buildings that one could rebuild a great city on.

Maybe if we recycle the city.....go green or something to that effect......wonder how much copper been stolen out the abandon houses....actually never mind. I've a feeling the copper industry would boast in production for a couple months...

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
They are blaming the downfall of Detroit on a combination of paranoid white people who "fled" the city whenever the mass of african-americans moved into it seeking economic opportunities during the perceived height of the auto industry.

So it's white peoples fault?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Looking at various media outlets, blogs, etc. They are blaming the downfall of Detroit on a combination of paranoid white people who "fled" the city whenever the mass of african-americans moved into it seeking economic opportunities during the perceived height of the auto industry. When the legal economic opportunities dried up, the illegal ones opened up, bringing a huge swell in crime rates. Of course, once all the "good" people left, and the majority of the drugs went with them, so too did a lot of the crime (apparently)... Now we're left with a shell of a once great city, waiting to refind, and rebuild itself.


Honestly, I doubt that it will be rebuilt on the back of a newly energized steel industry coupled with a booming art community as Pittsburgh was. Though, if we (America) can save some of the great landmark architectural pieces of the City (United Artists Theater, the Michigan Central Station or whatever it was called, that huge tower that's been basically vacant since the 90s) there are a good number of buildings that one could rebuild a great city on.

Honestly, I think race is a just a massive red herring, either in the 'white people left as black people came looking for jobs' sense above, or in the 'we all know but we're not going to say it' sense that SlavetoDorkness was playing at.

And the legal opportunities drying up and leading people into illegal opportunities isn't so much the why of the issue, but the what. The question is why those legal opportunities dried up and nothing was found to replace them (as happened in Pittsburg).

Like everything, I think much of the issue comes down to structural drivers that mostly get ignored, because identifying them prevents us from blaming someone and scoring some political points. Exactly what those drivers are in this case is the question. One interesting thing I read about Detroit, in comparison to Pittsburg, is that Pittsburg remains a mostly urbanised city, while Detroit is a more of a suburban sprawl. It's fairly intuitive to see that large city centres attract major business investment in a way that suburban sprawl just doesn't. People want their company HQs in vibrant city centres, not in the midst of large housing developments.

There's also the observation that sprawl plays a part in reducing social mobility - the economics of suburban sprawl tend to locate poor families in poor suburbs, which are almost always quite a distance from where the jobs are. It also tends to poduce high differentials in rates of pay, as you can afford to pay less if your business is located in a poor area. This means less poor people work their way up the economic ladder, as David Leonhardt discusses in this article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html?hp&_r=0. From there, the argument can be made that social stratification can lead to economic decline (though that part is a fairly contentious claim).

There's also an issue of 'out of sight, out of mind'. Town renewal projects are highly political at the best of times, and well, if the poor communities are right next to the rich communities, the power players in government planning are going to be aware of those issues and want to solve them, if only so they don't have to walk past a crackhouse on the way to work But when there's sprawl those poorer communities can be out of sight, and therefore entirely out of mind of the politics of the city. Leave enough of those communities alone for long enough, and maybe you have a bigger chance of ending up like Detroit.

Those aren't complete answers, nor are they absolutely, 100% certain to be true. Because I'm really not sure at all how one city can lose its key industry and basically invent a new reason to continue existing, while another city cannot. But those ideas are maybe a start at why this sort of thing really does happen.

 sebster wrote:

Those aren't complete answers, nor are they absolutely, 100% certain to be true. Because I'm really not sure at all how one city can lose its key industry and basically invent a new reason to continue existing, while another city cannot. But those ideas are maybe a start at why this sort of thing really does happen.

I think that, in a sense, nearly every "major" city will go through this throughout its life. Obviously Detroit is the most extreme example of this. Obviously I don't really have the best answer to fix their problems, but I personally would think that it could start with their art school/art community. I've also looked at some of the photo essays out there on the city's decay, and I think that with the right sorts of initiatives, many of the art deco period buildings could be saved, renovated and revamped, and then be used as a sort of lure, to get people to come back to the 'new' Detroit.


I don't really think that race had much to do with it either (it's just where many fingers pointed in many blogs and whatnot), and more to do with political policy and the fall on effects from those policy changes,etc.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I think that, in a sense, nearly every "major" city will go through this throughout its life. Obviously Detroit is the most extreme example of this. Obviously I don't really have the best answer to fix their problems, but I personally would think that it could start with their art school/art community. I've also looked at some of the photo essays out there on the city's decay, and I think that with the right sorts of initiatives, many of the art deco period buildings could be saved, renovated and revamped, and then be used as a sort of lure, to get people to come back to the 'new' Detroit.

I'm not sure it's a fate every city will have, as the decline of steel and auto manufacture is not something that is necessarily going to happen to the primary reasons for being that many other cities have (unless we stretch out time to when the robots enslave us all). I mean, Chicago is a major logistics hub, and that's not really going to change so long as the rest of the country exists and moves things from place to place.

I'm also a little wary of redevelopment initiatives that give people a reason to live there (art communities, revitalising buildings) without giving businesses a reason to locate there. I mean, sure, bring back the people and businesses will come to service those people, but that's a bit like a population of sharks existing by eating other sharks in the community... there is needs to be an input, a money flow in to the community, because that community can export some good because it does it better than anywhere else.

That's complicated, of course, by the nature of the modern service economy, where there's really no geographical advantage to where you put your software or robotics industry. But somehow Pittsburg managed to attract new high tech business, and that drove its success.

I don't really think that race had much to do with it either (it's just where many fingers pointed in many blogs and whatnot), and more to do with political policy and the fall on effects from those policy changes,etc.

Yeah, definitely.