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 Frazzled wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
That's a point of debate. Not everyone actually agrees that democracy must be suspended in Detroit. The anti-labor, white Republican governor of Michigan represents the people who do -- and that's not everyone.

Cool. Leave it alone then. Being as none of us are from Detroit, lets all watch this live action TV episode of watching a city die. Doesn't bug me one way or another.

The problem there is that the city affects the state as a whole. Which is kind of an issue for those of us who live here. It's a local problem, though, so non-locals apathy is understandable.

Personally I don't care anymore. I'm just waiting for the first chance to jump ship and swim to safety like the rat I am

 Frazzled wrote:
Being as none of us are from Detroit

Speak for your goddamn self. The OP is from MI. I myself lived in south eastern MI including Detroit for a number of years. if you don't give a gak about the city and aren't from there and never lived there and have no friends or family there, then maybe it's you who shouldn't be posting about "letting it die."

 Manchu wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Being as none of us are from Detroit

Speak for your goddamn self. The OP is from MI. I myself live in Southwestern MI including Detroit for a number of years. if you don't give a gak about the city and aren't from there and never lived there and have no friends or family there, then maybe it's you who shouldn't be posting about "letting it die."

Curious... what do you think should be done?

There's homes there that is cheaper than my backyard shed.

I have no fething clue, honestly. That was my original point. This emergency manager thing is not new. MI Republicans have been floating it in the face of protest for a long while now. The issue is, even if they do decide to do it -- who will they even find that's willing to do it? Who has an idea of what to do?

Is democracy what's wrong with Detroit? I don't think so. So why are they really getting rid of it?

In my opinion, this is not a problem. It is a pile of problems. And I honestly don't think the government, whether elected representatives or appointed dictators, can solve them all or even most of them.

 Manchu wrote:
That's a point of debate. Not everyone actually agrees that democracy must be suspended in Detroit. The anti-labor, white Republican governor of Michigan represents the people who do -- and that's not everyone.

being someone who pays for the privilege of working in detroit (extra income tax) but has no vote, I say take over, its long overdue, the city takes a disproportionate amount of tax revenue from the state.

Really a tragedy but no one seems to care. I've watched countless videos and seen lots of websites devoted to the utter, wretched decay of a once-beautiful city into a 3rd world pest-hole.

Some nice buildings there. Great architecture in the downtown area. Houses were nice once, too. But now mostly decomposed into crackhouses and gangbanger hideouts. The videos showing street after street of abandoned, trashed out, filthy houses is really mind boggling. Piles of trash in the street.

I guess at some point just bulldozing it all and selling off what scrap has any worth might be an option. Can the city claim Eminent Domain and take over the abandoned homes and land and demolish it?

Does seem un-American in the extreme...but this is already an extreme situation.

That's really... off in a lot of ways. Not shocked the cities are starting to die, but a dictator's kinda nuts

Hoitash wrote:


Personally I don't care anymore. I'm just waiting for the first chance to jump ship and swim to safety like the rat I am

And I think that's a big part of the problem. To many are willing to just let the city die.

Detroit in many ways is Michigan. One city makes up more then half of the entire states GDP, yet it's beyond bankrupt, losing more then 15 million a month.

We can't let the city die. It's to big for the state. But the voters have shown again and again that they just don't care. Kwame Kilpatrick is a stark example. From everything I've heard of Bing, he's a good man who wants the best for the city, but has been stymied time and time again by the City Council who just seems to be out to get as much as they can before the ship sinks.

As for calls of dictatorship... the law has been on the books for decades, challeneged in courts, with some things about it being overtuned and some being upheld. Snyder did recently try to expand it, but voters did overturn that last year. Our previous governors used the power it multiple times in other cities, Snyder is just the first to take on the 600lb gorilla in the room.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.freep.com/article/20130301/OPINION02/130301099/Detroit-emergency-financial-manager-Gov-Rick-Snyder?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Like him or not. Trust him or not. Believe him or not.

Gov. Rick Snyder hit the nail on the head Friday — a couple times, actually — when, in announcing his plan to put an emergency manager in Detroit to oversee the city’s dismal finances, he said these key things:

“Detroit can’t wait. We need to solve this issue today because residents are not getting the services they need.”

"Citizens of Detroit are the customers of the city, not just the citizens. We need to figure out how to provide them great service."

And the congregation — and by that I mean the regular, hardworking residents of this city who have stuck it out and keep swinging in what can sometimes seem a futile battle — said, “Amen!”

What would be interesting is if all of the elected officials were chosen by lottery from the city limits, instead of by election of those with only enough money to run for office.

On the one hand, the idea of an unelected official being given extreme authority over elected representatives is ideologically offensive. On the other, local governments are horrible, having neither the resources nor power to do good, while having extreme ability to cause harm.

I think pragmatism has to win out; it might be an offensive idea, but if at least some of the problems are the fault of incompetent or corrupt local officials, then it might be able to solve that.

First of all Detroit is below the bridge and thusly, full of trolls. eh.

Detroit sucks, we all know it sucks. I liked the plan they have pitched for nearly a decade, tear down and remove the streets of outer Detroit. Making a smaller, more manageable city. Pay for the hold outs to relocate.

There will always be someone in a house that says they will not budge, until you offer them enough money to relocate.

I want my 2 city blocks worth of property converted back into rural wilderness.

Get in while the getting is good.


Alternately, Detroit could have a thriving business hosting guided survivalist adventure vacations. We discussed this at great length at work awhile back.

Buy a few blocks, wall it up, make a barracks, whatever, supplies etc. buy an armoured transport, and some other locations with burned out husks of buildings.

Advertise.

Bring people in with armed escorts in the armoured vehicle, and see if they can last a week in the burned out buildings and the tours.

Tigers Lions and Cheetahs? Nope. Crack heads, gangers, and packs of wild dogs, yes.

Go back to home and work and brag to all your friends you survived a week in Detroit.

Profit.

Detroit is southern michigan, so populated by Fudgies. Northern LP'ers are Trolls. The souther LP'ers are fudgies because they come up to troll territory to by the fudge.

 whembly wrote:
There's homes there that is cheaper than my backyard shed.

I'm sure I heard on the news that there are houses there for less than $3000? And that whole swathes of the city are just abandoned as people just stopped paying rent/mortgages and went somewhere else when their homes became worthless?

It seems like it might be worth trying to get some high tech, low footprint companies to buy up neighbourhoods, to resell cheaply to their workers. Not only are you getting people, companies and money moving back into the city (hopefully for extended periods of time), but also brainpower and prestige.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 whembly wrote:
There's homes there that is cheaper than my backyard shed.

I'm sure I heard on the news that there are houses there for less than $3000? And that whole swathes of the city are just abandoned as people just stopped paying rent/mortgages and went somewhere else when their homes became worthless?

It seems like it might be worth trying to get some high tech, low footprint companies to buy up neighbourhoods, to resell cheaply to their workers. Not only are you getting people, companies and money moving back into the city (hopefully for extended periods of time), but also brainpower and prestige.

Your talking inner city Detroit... good like finding people who want to invest in that.

Detroit needs some sound urban planning.

A burgeoning metro area needs certain things to survive, namely a reason. People don't congregate to a random place due to change; they often find reasons such as convenience or strategic thinking.

In Detroit's case, industry and location drove the city to higher populations, but as the automotive industry declined, the city lost that population. Perhaps building a subway system and other amenities that many successful cities (but not all) would of helped convince others to stay but that is all past now and what we have today is a shrunken city with many, many problems.

I don't know if the city can reclaim what it has lost due to population loss but the focus should be to concentrate and focus the money and services to a smaller area. Abandoning the outskirts of the city would be a bad idea, but they need to convert those areas into suburban sprawl to replace unused buildings.

Reverse the process of urbanization and invest in what is the core that is profitable.

There has been a lot of talk that Mike Ilitch is buying up a lot of land downtown, and will be building something big. A new arena for the Redwings is a given, but possibly a new stadium for the Pistons as well. Along with that, he's mentioned plans for a giant shopping center type of thing.

Such a thing would be great for the city, especially if he buys the right land for it. The only problem is the entirety of the area surrounding it is effecitvely a warzone where people like me do not get out of their car without full battle rattle and the ability to call in air strikes. Something has to be done about that.

 djones520 wrote:
Your talking inner city Detroit... good like finding people who want to invest in that.

That bad eh?

I was picturing slightly more suburban areas being abandoned and the possibility of turning them into science and business parks quite cheaply by buying up a couple of blocks and then selling or renting the homes out to employees of the companies that move in.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Your talking inner city Detroit... good like finding people who want to invest in that.

That bad eh?

I was picturing slightly more suburban areas being abandoned and the possibility of turning them into science and business parks quite cheaply by buying up a couple of blocks and then selling or renting the homes out to employees of the companies that move in.

The subruban area's aren't so bad. My grandmother lives on the Taylor, Dearborne border, and it's a decent enough town. Still higher crime rate then I'm comfortable with, but these parts of Detroit... it's bad. Robocop bad.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
That bad eh?

It is possible to mistake inner city Detroit for a very elaborate Fallout 4 advertisement.

Oh dear...

 Seaward wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
That bad eh?

It is possible to mistake inner city Detroit for a very elaborate Fallout 4 advertisement.

There was a kickstarter to fund a zombie theme park....

ANd yes it is that bad, just check out the literacy rate of those coming out of high school (hint its as low as 25% in some areas of detroit) IMO thats the biggest reason detroit is dying, no one is going to move a family into that city when the schools are so horrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lets also not ignore the fact that the city has had a ridiculus amount of time to right its own course and has failed to do so.

I could point out the obvioius union graft positions still around today like a Farrier position (horse shoe specialist) for the water department. The City Water Department has no horses, yet the city refuses to reduce staff, even when it comes to the Farrier.

Do not pity these people they made their own bed, now all of Michigan will pay for it.

 Seaward wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
That bad eh?

It is possible to mistake inner city Detroit for a very elaborate Fallout 4 advertisement.

Implying it's not an actual post apocalyptic hell hole. I have combat vet friends who wouldn't go to Detroit or Chicago if you paid'em, and these are guys who cut their teeth in '03 for the Invasion,

For those of you not familiar with Detroit, watch Robocop, set in Detroit.

Real Detroit is much much worse than they depicted it in that movie.

 Shadowseer_Kim wrote:
For those of you not familiar with Detroit, watch Robocop, set in Detroit.

Real Detroit is much much worse than they depicted it in that movie.

Are thugs tagging cop cars while they are getting Starbucks?

probably not just tagging them, but also stealing tires from the cop car, radio, shotgun, and backseat.

I graduated from Wayne State (downtown detroit) and I still get the campus alerts and such to my email address. Whats great is how they frequently mention in every email NOT to call 911, instead call the on campus police because they actually respond.

Detroit's not all bad but they need some sort of kick in the rear like this to get going.

 Manchu wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Being as none of us are from Detroit

Speak for your goddamn self. The OP is from MI. I myself lived in south eastern MI including Detroit for a number of years. if you don't give a gak about the city and aren't from there and never lived there and have no friends or family there, then maybe it's you who shouldn't be posting about "letting it die."

Ooo.. touchy touchy.
A city is dying. Let it die.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
I have no fething clue, honestly. That was my original point. This emergency manager thing is not new. MI Republicans have been floating it in the face of protest for a long while now. The issue is, even if they do decide to do it -- who will they even find that's willing to do it? Who has an idea of what to do?

Is democracy what's wrong with Detroit? I don't think so. So why are they really getting rid of it?

In my opinion, this is not a problem. It is a pile of problems. And I honestly don't think the government, whether elected representatives or appointed dictators, can solve them all or even most of them.

The problem is the auto industry died there. Like every other boom time, mourn it and move on.

It's not as simple as letting it die Frazzled. Detroit is responsible for more then half of the GDP of the state. An irresponsible government would just let it die.

 djones520 wrote:
It's not as simple as letting it die Frazzled. Detroit is responsible for more then half of the GDP of the state. An irresponsible government would just let it die.

Source, because I call shenanigans!

 Frazzled wrote:
The problem is the auto industry died there. Like every other boom time, mourn it and move on.

The southern states, including many parts of Texas, are gak holes and have been gak holes for a lot longer than Detroit has had problems. Is the decline of agricultural profit a sign that this region should be abandoned, as has more or less been the case for ~150 years? Your attitude is not only detached from reality but utterly repulsive.