Mayor Aims to Reverse Detroit Exodus

The Wall Street Journal ^ | June 22, 2014 | Matthew Dolan

[MinorityRepublican]

DETROIT— Mike Duggan wants to do what no mayor of Detroit has done in more than half a century: attract more people than the city loses.

"The single standard a mayor should be defined on is whether the population of the city is going up or going down," Mr. Duggan said in an interview at his City Hall office six months after he was sworn in.

If he fails, he says he doesn't expect to run in 2017 and win—marking the boldness of his undertaking, considering the long odds he faces.

Other former industrial powerhouses including Cleveland and St. Louis have lost tens of thousands of residents since their midcentury heydays. But some have begun to stabilize their populations, including Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

Detroit is still one of the nation's 20 biggest cities, but its population generally has been falling the fastest among that group. It has dropped from a peak of 1.85 million in 1950, when Detroit was the fifth biggest U.S. city, to an estimated 688,000 today. In the 10 years before the 2010 census, the city lost one in four residents. And the once-mighty home of the U.S. auto industry is today fighting through the nation's largest municipal bankruptcy.

While Mr. Duggan's predecessor, Dave Bing, aimed at one time to consolidate the city, focusing on fewer, thriving neighborhoods and potentially cutting services to some areas, Mr. Duggan has big plans to revitalize the whole of Detroit. He aims to improve services, accelerate demolition of rundown homes, sell some vacant lots to next-door neighbors for $100 and do better in marketing homes in limbo to a new crop of Detroiters.

[cripplecreek]

Have ICE fly the illegal immigrant children to Detroit. Problem solved.

Brilliant idea, we finally got Michigan into GOP hands and geniuses like yourself want to hand us back over to the democrats.

[cripplecreek]

Personally I think Mayor of Detroit would be a great political job for Ben Carson.



Michigan legislative action thread

[Lakeshark]

I'd like him to run, be competitive, then lose to someone like Cruz, stump for Cruz energetically, then be appointed in a cabinet position to destroy bamster care.

The man would be perfect for that.

[Mikey_1962]

Detroit's population peaked in 1948, and has been declining ever since.

Housing costs were the first reason for leaving. Then the lack of services, high taxation and the riots, accelerated the decline.

[Gritty]

Housing costs were the first reason for leaving. Then the lack of services, high taxation and the riots, accelerated the decline.

Well, they certainly have eliminated "housing costs" as one of the reasons.

I can think of a few more:

1. Racism and racial politics

2. Unions

3. Total degeneration of the culture

Feel free to add your own additions.

[cripplecreek]

There is trouble brewing within the UAW which could explode into an all out union on union war. Seems that members are getting a little tired of the union blowing big bucks trying to force people to unionize when they don't want a union.

Be sure to check out the video

UAW: War on the factory floor?

[Gritty]

That’s a start.

[MrB]

Institutionalized and governmentally enforced “hatin’ on YT” have anything to do with it?

[Hot Tabasco]

Would you live in Somalia?

The only difference between Detroit and there

Oh stop it with the ignorant adhominim attack.......You know nothing about downtown Detroit......

I could come right back at you with the equally ignorant statement about "steers and queers"...........but I won't.

But if you want to get pissy about it, I'd rather watch the rebirth of downtown Detroit and the investments going on in all the abandoned properties than experience the Texas border towns being flooded with illegal aliens...........

But then again, in the words of my niece's ex-husband who is from Ft. Worth, Texas doesn't really have a problem with day-workers who stand on the corners waiting for the contractors to pick them up.........

[who knows what evil?]

Conservatives should LEAVE the blue states for their red neighbors...let them twist in the wind.

[Hot Tabasco]

Housing costs were the first reason for leaving.

Actually it wasn't Mikey..........The exodus to the upscale suburbs such as Roseville, Sterling Heights and the higher cost houses in New Baltimore, Macomb Twp., Washington Twp.......etc......was the result of the higher incomes provided by auto companies.

Most of those residents got their start working for the autos while living in the original small frame houses in Detroit and Hamtramck. As their incomes improved, they naturally could afford bigger and better homes and thus the expected exodus..........

Those who remain are the elderly whose homes are virtually worthless and can't afford to sell in order to move out of the city and the others are deadbeat renters who are at the mercy of their equally deadbeat slumlords...........

[DH]

Hey “Hot Tabasco” did you know that Detroit is the model city to show what Unions and Racial correctness will do to a city?

Gee! I wonder just why all of that manufacturing left the city like it was infected with leprosy?

Somehow, I have the feeling that you were a good union employee and an even better Democratic voter.

Just sayin’.

[gleeaikin]

I seem to recall that they cleaned up a lot of the industrial uglyness and made the waterfront more attractive.

[Liberty Valance]

~ Big ‘ol Bump ~

[Hot Tabasco]

I seem to recall that they cleaned up a lot of the industrial uglyness and made the waterfront more attractive.

Chene Park is just one example.......

[Hot Tabasco]

Somehow, I have the feeling that you were a good union employee and an even better Democratic voter.

That's a false feeling that comes from drinking too much booze and typing on your laptop during happy hour.......