“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.
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.