Posted on 03/28/2011 7:06:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Imagine for a moment that every single person living in the city of San Jose, plus another 150,000 or so, just up and left. Vanished. Poof. Gone. Leaving their homes, business buildings and factories behind.
That is, in effect, what has happened to the city of Detroit, according to 2010 U.S. Census data released this week. The city that boasted 1.8 million residents in 1950, and was the nation's economic engine for most of the 20th century, now is home to 714,000 people, a population loss of some 1.1 million — with a 25% drop in the last decade alone.
It's an unprecedented collapse of a major American city. It's not as if the population was dropping nationwide; it's going up. Just not in Detroit. It's closest "outmigration" rival is Chicago, a five-hour drive to the west, which has lost about 964,000 people since 1950 but still holds about 2.7 million people, down 25% from its peak of 3.62 million in 1950.
In Detroit, the loss amounts to a staggering 60% of the city's peak population. It is now smaller than Charlotte, N.C., and Fort Worth. More people have left Detroit than live in San Francisco; more people have left in the last decade than live in St. Petersburg, Fla.
There are all sorts of implications here, both for Detroit and for the nation. The 2010 census counts for Detroit (and Chicago) were much lower than local officials, and earlier census estimates, had predicted. That raises the question of whether there were problems with the count last year or in 2000, setting false benchmarks. Detroit officials say they plan to challenge the numbers, and Mayor David Bing announced he wants to find 40,000 Detroiters who were missed to try to push the count above the 750,000 mark,
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“Racism plays a significant role too. ... That was followed by middle-class flight on the part of blacks and whites as crime endemic to high-poverty, high-unemployment neighborhoods began spreading”
ROTFLOL!
And how exactly is flight from crime by both blacks and whites racism? You Progressive Marxists at the LA Times just can’t help yourselves, now can you? The new Marxist mantra is now “Racism!” since “It’s Bush’s fault!” has worn thin, and “Global Warming caused it!” doesn’t work any more. When are you mush-brains gonna blame tsunamis on racism? Probably won’t be long, I bet.
Oh, and I just love that tongue-twister “less labor-friendly states”! Would it have killed you to say “more business-friendly states”? Yeah, probably.
And what can one say about the notion of “intentional de-industrialization”? Original I admit, but a ridiculous phrase to describe moving manufacturing a few hundred miles away because of greater opportunities. Besides, shouldn’t you Progressive/Marxists be celebrating “intentional de-industrialization”, anyway? I mean, after all, ya’ll hate big business with a passion, right?
So, let me get this straight. The Progressive/Marxist view of the cause of Detroit’s implosion is “Racism”, other states, and “intentional de-industrialization”. And, it had nothing to due with high taxation, a strangle-hold by corrupt unions, or decades of single-party rule by corrupt Democrats being sent off to prison with the regularity of a ticking metronome, right?
Let me repeat: ROTFLOL!
“Racism plays a significant role too. ... That was followed by middle-class flight on the part of blacks and whites as crime endemic to high-poverty, high-unemployment neighborhoods began spreading”
Right all those people would have stayed if it had been white people commiting all those crimes.
I’ve seen this happen in many neighborhoods in NYC. Crime starts to rise, middle class people leave. This drives down prices, lower income people start to move in, crime increases dramatically, anyone who can afford to leave gets out. These people are not stupid racists. They are not going to leave their homes without a darn good reason.
it's just how it is
blame Democrats, Unions whatever makes folks feel warm and fuzzy but get out and see the world and get back to me.
the realities we confront suck..they are not what we'd like them to be all neat and tucked with hospital corners
it's rather ugly..the human timeline and all
doesn't mean we can't try..it's the moral thing to do but we are now at the point of self destruction over these types of unwillingness to confront group realities head on and honestly
it's precisely how we ended up with the worst most traditional culture hating President this nation has ever seen or we could imagine
ping
“Cities got old....”
That has little to do with why Detroit has failed as a city. Older cities on the eastern seaboard are doing just fine. Detroit declined because the union-sponsored communist Democrats created a socialist city that penalized successful people. Those people, feeling unwelcome, left the city. Now the place resembles a low-budget 1970’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie set.
Except that the apocalyptic disaster came in the form of the Communists from the AFL-CIO and the Democrat party.
Yep, it was racist of those whites to leave for greener pastures. And, it was racist of those blacks who saw the light and left as well.
LOL! The author can’t have it all ways, but he tried.
Matches and gasoline...then end all union contracts
Yes, unless you are a liberal.
Detroit has it’s own self-created problem with racism.
The people of Detroit hate the suburbs. We’re trying to steal their “jewels,” tell them what to do, we’re “those people.” They’ve run with Water & Sewer Dept. like a piggy bank with the ‘burbs paying the costs and scream bloody murder if the burbs want a say on the board...nevermind there used to be TWO water systems and a former governor merged them. The ‘burbs system was taken over by Detroit, literally and figuratively.
An entrepreneur, wanting to give something back to the city for his successful career, offered to pony up millions of dollars to build a state-of-the-art charter school for Detroit kids. Granholm and TPTB (namely the teacher’s unions) wouldn’t have any part of it so the businessman got kicked to the curb. Oh, and he was white too, which makes him a devil or “outsider.”
Money has been poured into the open sewer that is Detroit, but the people that remain want what they think are “their rights” to welfare, food stamps, money, recompense, culture, etc. They’re not interested in improving the city, only in what they can squeeze out of it.
It is the future if you are LA or Cleveland or Akron or Indianapolis or Buffalo or Hartford or Providence or Philadelphia or Flint or Toledo or any number of cities that are simply obsolete and financial disasters.
There is no longer a reason for them to be. It is better to start new in say South Carolina or Alabama or perhaps Tennessee than screw with all the crap in these old places.
There are a bunch of Michigan cities with less than 1 million in population that charge a city income tax.
For instance: Grand Rapids (pop. 188,000); Muskegon (pop. 40,000)
it's rather ugly..the human timeline and all
Robots and slaves make our goods. There is precious little need for "value added" and more people than jobs to fill. Capital has replaced people. The wealthy don't need any more than a few servants, "sex workers," and entertainers. Two of out of three of those can be simulated. So, what they want is for the rest of us not to breed so that they can have it all.
"All" includes all the land, for which they believe "nature takes care of itself." How tidy. The problem is, it isn't true. Everywhere I look, land is deteriorating from neglect, and it isn't going to be easy to fix. Meanwhile, the elitists are destroying the remnant that knows how to do it.
Yeah, it's bad. Did you know that there is a list of effective preventative measures designed over 3,000 years ago? This whole problem is predicted in Genesis 4, yet nobody seems to understand what it means.
The article doesn’t mention the liberal policies that bankrupted Detroit - or the racism of its black elite that drove whites out of the city.
Its just easier to blame Detroit’s collapse on Da Man.
The clenched fist statue is not socialist—it represents boxer Joe Louis.
In Texas, the governor actually shot a coyote while jogging, with his privately-owned pistol.
The taxpayers were out nothing.
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/wily-coyote-no-match-for-governors-gun-634362.html
Detroit: The Triumph of Progressive Public Policy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2568610/posts
and Mayor David Bing announced he wants to find 40,000 Detroiters who were missed to try to push the count above the 750,000 mark,
LOL Look in the graveyards where you get your voters.
Yeah, that's why nobody goes to Milan anymore.
You got your cause and effect switched around there.
What do you want me to say?? That there is no longer a mostly white working population?? ATTHT
Politics no doubt did play a part, but so did the residents themselves, many of whom participated in the 1967 riot that resulted in widespread destruction of property, loss of life and over 7,000 arrests.
The subsequent caving to the black militants--who didn't speak for but a small fraction of the black population--by white liberals trying to "save" Detroit probably intensified racial animosities and contributed to the city's population decline. You had blacks as well as whites wanting to get out while the getting was good, while they could still sell their house, before things got any worse.
I've never had the experience of visiting Detroit although I have friends there. They put me onto a remarkable photo book, The Ruins of Detroit. It has a number of before-and-after images that tell a story no writer could possibly relate.
The book is a little pricey; however, one of the authors has posted images from the book at Amazon for us cheapskates to view.
Truly horrifying. Many parts of Detroit remain just as they were after the 1967 riots; other areas have been leveled with no plans to rebuild.
One would wonder who'd want to live there.
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