Detroit's horrifying collapse accelerating beyond belief

I've read in the past the main problem is the cost to move there as a business. Lets say you want to buy a building well first you need to spend 10s of millions to get it up to code first then they might let you buy it. The corruption is horrible, never ending line of inspectors, fines, fees, bribes etc....a business has no chance. Then you need to deal with unions and union pay and benefits...it never ends.

One would think all that unused land could become new track homes but once again you never get past all of above to do anything, so it all rots.

a reply to: jtrenthacker

Are some of these photos a result of the demoltion program? I find it hard to believe that these homes would have collapsed and/or completely disappeared in 2-4 years.

My hometown looks about as bad. I grew up in Gary, IN. After the houses are left empty it doesn't take long for them to decay, especially in a wet environment. When the roof goes the structure rots/becomes unstable.

Empty houses attract vandalism and homeless types. They start fires and the city comes in and tears down the remaining structure. Other fires are started for insurance, some are naturally occurring but with no one home/neighbors to report it the houses burn beyond repair.

In Gary the fire department would let some structures burn/keep it from spreading. A whole block of high rise abandon buildings burned, we went to check it out and it looked like a scene from Europe during WWII. We left Gary soon after.

Btw Gary was founded by US Steel, when they were done raking in the cash/work slowed down the city was left to ruin. Similar to what happened in Detroit with the auto industry.

Might as well let nature take it's course and the land "formerly known as Detroit" will be the first of MANY major cities to finally cleanse itself of it's urban, industrial cancer. At this point it must be too far beyond repair (i.e. beyond the workload we're willing to deal with, meanwhile the gov't is still wasting our money and military on utter rubbish and foreign affairs that aren't our business).

Anyone from that area who can attest to how widespread the situation is over there? Maybe I've been living under a rock, or maybe the MSM can just chalk this one up as another important issue they aren't willing to cover. I did just read a headline from 2011 saying the city had a plan that would "cede 20% of Detroit to gangs and the homeless", which is pretty remarkable.

a reply to: Xtrozero

Detroit is the result of too much government intervention. There is a reason why they downplay what is happening there in the media. Because most Democratic cities will suffer the same fate if they continue on their course of more and more government regulation, with more and more taxes, and bigger and bigger governments.

Keep in mind that no one wants to move into an area that is still in the top twenty murder capitals of the united states.
a reply to: KarensHoliday

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Government regulation is a double edged sword. EPA came down hard on US Steel in Gary. They could either make improvements or pay fines, they chose to pay fines and work slowed down.

US Steel polluted lake Michigan for decades. My white bikini went as tan as me after swimming in the lake. Mill cars were completely covered in red dust. It was pretty bad.

US Steel wasn't the only offender. Once the city infrastructure fell into disrepair things started leaking out of everything and it all ended up in the lake. Businesses/industry went bankrupt/owners abandoned them and it's a fight to get them to clean up the mess/set things right.

Same thing happened here in CO after the coal industry abandoned ship. Lots of mine tailings everywhere, shafts were left open and many open pit mines weren't reclaimed. In my area the state picked up the tab to seal off some of the mines since the original owners couldn't be found or held accountable. One company used to come in check for gases periodically but I haven't seen them in years.

originally posted by: nfflhome
Unions, why pay someone $25-$75 an hour when someone else will do the same job
for under $25 an hour. Unions had their day but they where a big part of the cause along with the
elected city government.

Sorry but Unions are not totally at fault here. Unions took pay cuts to help the auto industry and save jobs. What led to Detroit's demise was Reagan. He wage war on the Unions and helped pave the way for the free trade agreement that moved a lot of jobs from Detroit to Mexico. You are spouting the same BS the Republicans have been crying for decades.

a reply to: Morningglory

I did say "too much government" regulation not "any government regulation". Despite being a Libertarian I can also see the need for limited government regulation. But it needs to be in moderation. Too much and it quickly swells out of control with unmanageable and unnavigable bureaucracies.

I saw it happening before my eyes as well when I was growing up in the metro area. I studied the Detroit area's history as well as the thumb, and can see a parallel in the old farming communities that shrank, disincorporated and finally became just a place name on a map with little evidence left. It made me believe that if all humans disappeared off the planet, in 100 years, you'd be hard pressed to find the ruins.

Maybe nature will just swallow the whole place up and everyone can move and start over.

wouldn't make a bad place to send Congress for a "fact-finding" mission

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Xtrozero

Detroit is the result of too much government intervention. There is a reason why they downplay what is happening there in the media. Because most Democratic cities will suffer the same fate if they continue on their course of more and more government regulation, with more and more taxes, and bigger and bigger governments.

Some facts

www.businessinsider.com...
1.Detroit's population has plunged 63% since 1950.
2....and it's down 26% since 2000.
3.The unemployment rate hit a high of 27.8% in July 2009.
4.As of April 2013, the unemployment rate was at 16%.
5.Even though the population fell 63% since 1950, the municipal workforce fell by just 40%, adding to the strain on public finances.
6.Detroit has the highest violent crime rate of any large U.S. city
7....it's five times higher than the national average.
8.40% of the city's street lights don't work.
9.78,000 structures and 66,000 lots are abandoned.
10.Arson accounts for 1,000 of 12,000 fires per year.
11....60% of those arson fires are in dilapidated or empty buildings.

Welcome to a 99.99% liberal city....

I love one article that says Detroit workers lack "soft" skills, like showing up for work....lol







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a reply to: KarensHoliday

What a sad and depressing place.

I read an article about Detroit recently that was written two years ago, and it stated that the population had fallen by over 25% in a 10 year time frame...yet they were continuing to pump tax payer money into an artificial economy. Poor citizens.

What to do if that was your hometown? Myself, I think it would be too depressing to stick around and watch it crumble...

Nature has a way of renewing itself, so maybe that time has come for Detroit.

Hopefully some historians have captured the salad days.

Interesting images, OP.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Agreed. My mom's house was foreclosed on in March and it has yet to have a for sale sign out front.

It was built in 1952, and the last occupants left some awesome 70's clothes behind. I still have the two dresses

Its quite sad how this might happen to the house

Detroit is a mess. I was there briefly as part of a layover on a Greyhound bus about a year and a half ago. The employees at the bus station wouldn't let you leave and walk a couple blocks to a restaurant because it wasn't safe... in broad daylight. If you wanted to go somewhere to eat (no food places in the bus station) you had to get a taxi to drive you. Even the sidewalks were blocked off from traffic because the buildings were crumbling and there were falling concrete concerns.

The entire city is literally falling apart. There's war zones that are in better condition than Detroit.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Did you perhaps mean too much government corruption?
The corruption in Detroit that has gone on for the last 40 years is a huge part of the current decay.

Theoretically, Detroit has hit rick bottom....
When it comes out of bankruptcy later this year....things may be better.
Garbage collection has been privatized.
Debt is being restructured.
Money will be spent to raze abandoned homes.

I have a bit of hope for Detroit.

a reply to: cosmikDebris

I am now writing here from the Detroit area. All the above is true. On the PLUS side (if there can be even a tiny sliver of hope)...2 buildings were demolished today for public safety...and 2 at once in the same neighborhood hardly ever occurs. We have a new mayor who has turned the DMC Medical Center completely around and the future looks somewhat brighter.

The trash pickup (often days late or not at all) has been privatized and the citizens are delighted at the immediate difference. As well, movies such as the new ROBO COP, and TRANSFORMERS were shot in Detroit and bring in revenue. Just today they are shooting a movie with Eliza Dushku called ELOISE about an old area asylum. So things are looking up...even tho minutely.

I do not live in the city itself, but did own a house there. I had crackheads, druggies and ho's (sorry ladies!), boarded up and burned out houses all around me before I finally sold out at a profit. Going online, I found my old house (still with the same bad surroundings outside)...completely redone, a lot of $$$ put into it...and I could go back and buy it for $10,000 LESS than I sold it for. All fixed up like new.

But, no one has yet fixed the lowlifes walking around, torn down the homes that need to be, nor made it any safer to live there. I now live in a quiet nice neighborhood in the West Side of Dearborn, Mi.

Used to live in Detroit, now I find myself living across the state. My grandparents told me they moved out of Detroit in the 1950s because of the blacks. Apparently racial tensions had reached their peak, rioting and violence were widespread throughout Detroit, and all the people with the money (primarily white people) packed up and left. What was left were the impoverished, criminals, and the corrupt political establishment in Detroit.

You can blame the fall of Detroit on a lot of things. There are a lot compounding issues. Me personally though? I blame it on the "War on Drugs."

a reply to: Aazadan

That is the second time you have said this in a thread about Detroit and I am going to say you LIE.

ONE - the employees wouldn't care if you left or not that's your business
TWO - you cannot throw a rock from any of the Grey hound Stations and not hit a Coney Island

So, while your story makes a great sound bite it is complete BS and we both know that for a fact.

a reply to: TheToastmanCometh

Same thing happened to my parents' house as well. Except this happened back in 2011. We still drive by the house every now and then. The gate is wide open and we can see that the shed door has been left open the whole time. The only thing the bank has done with the house in the last 3 years is redo some siding and cut the grass.

There is also a house that is 2 doors down from where my parents currently live that has the same situation. No one living in it and is unlisted.