Feral Detroit (Nature is reclaiming the Motor City)

City Journal ^ | Autumn 2009 | Steven Malanga

[Allegra]

And the Morlocks are already emerging...

[RJL]

After winning election in 1973, Detroit’s first black mayor, Coleman Young, consolidated his power, driving white residents, who had voted against him, out of the city by withdrawing services from their neighborhoods. Eventually, Glaeser and Shleifer write, Detroit became “an overwhelmingly black city mired in poverty and social problems”—and shrinking fast.

So Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe learned how to destroy cities and countries from Detroit Mayor Coleman Young.

[Cyber Liberty]

Wow. Just Wow. The pictures remind me of the series on The History Channel about life after man.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Last winter in Detroit.

[Gay State Conservative]

I wonder if Ontario would consent to absorbing Michigan?

[FreePaul]

Kinda dims the dreams of a “vine covered cottage.”

[MediaMole]

Even the union workers have long since left the city of Detroit. Pretty much all that are left are welfare recipients and the criminals who prey on them.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Sad to say, the riots in ‘67 persuaded huge numbers of people to leave. White residents left in big numbers, and so did big numbers of black residents. Decent black people don’t want to live in a ghetto any more than white people do.

Did they ever do the urban homesteading thing in Detroit? Some cities have had some success with those, where you can buy distressed properties for low prices, in exchange for promises to renovate and live there.

Then again, would anything work for a place where decent people just don’t want to live???????

[jwparkerjr]

re: when you let unions and lefties take over and run the place

There’s a lesson here but sadly it will go unlearned. It is patently obvious that America is following pretty much the same path as did Detroit.

[usurper]

Some of those are quite nice and could be restored. Its too bad because even if you fixed it up you still be living in a hell hole.

I have been to Detroit and I must say that I would not walk around without a gun.

[goodnesswins]

How sad....many in 3rd world countries would die for a place like those to fix up....is this what our grandchildren will be facing?

[I Buried My Guns]

that was an excellent link, FRiend. Very well put together.

There is a poignance to the devolution and reversion of Detroit, and I think that blogger found it.

[Liberty Valance]

Thanks for that link. Amazing.

[married21]

Maybe the lots could be homesteaded by urban pioneers. Or leased to people who want to grow crops or something. Of course, the powers that be would have to decide that they want enterprising self-starters living among them. Never mind.

[autumnraine]

Relocate the people in the neighborhoods and declare the unused neighborhoods in a certain mile radius (that will now be without schools) a “sex offender friendly zone” and there will be an influx of people willing to relocate and purchase (and repair) the homes. Also there will be businesses who see a large influx of residents and will reopen stores in that area (sex offenders have to eat and buy gas too). You will have the stigma, but if there is a large population, you can’t really ‘hide’ in it either. As is it, you don’t know who you are dining next to, but odds are you would be pretty sure in that ‘zone’.

I know people of Detroit don’t want a mass influx of sex offenders, but they have to go somewhere and this is a way to keep a closer monitor on them as well as fix the ‘what do we do with this property’ issue. Also bringing in revenue to the city.

Just a thought.

[Farmer Dean]

The City Counsel meetings are a sight to behold.

[I_Like_Spam]

Its more than just a loss of population there that is the problem.

Pittsburgh has also lost half its population during the same period, and isn’t in nearly as bad a shape.

[kjo]

What a great city it was. Growing up there in the fifties and sixties I remember a sprawling, wealthy, huge conglomerate of a city. Hudson’s...downtown, the Olympia where we watched the Red Wings...Briggs, later called Tiger Stadium...baseball and football.

It all began to end in July, 1967 when the decision was made at the highest levels of city and state government to not protect property during the riot...excuse me, civil insurrection.

George Romney and Jerry Cavanaugh allowed the city to burn...over forty people died anyway...and tens of thousands began to move out. Heck...Sterling Heights, er...I mean Sterling Whites was just farm land until then.

By the seventies when Coleman Young became mayor...he was a black racist...it was game over. Political pay to play became the order of the day, and that never ended. Corruption remains at incredible levels...not that the justice department is much interested.

Those left now live behind bars over their windows and doors. Nine years ago the Detroit Police told me to move my elderly mother out of the city before she got hurt.

I did. She’s safe now...but misses her old neighborhood...not that it’s there anymore.

When I go back and drive through what’s left, only in daylight, I cry. I mean...I actually weep. It’s sickening.

Fifty years of Democrat leadership.

[Cyber Liberty]

As anywhere else, there are small pockets of “remainders.” They should be allowed to homestead large tracts of the land to do with as they please. The place would be standing tall in a generation. The land is likely fertile, having been unplanted for a hundred years....

[Cyber Liberty]

Ooops...got the year wrong. I think ‘68 was Watts. The Race Riots were like one long blur to me.