Detroit in ruins

wow you would think it suffered some sort of natura disaster

I too am 1 mile from Detroit in a suburb.

Swami-Kwami, his mom and father...took all the money.

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
Just discovered that ultimately it was the stubbornness of the unions which allowed this to come full circle.

When business demands too much, labor forms unions...


When unions demand too much, business fails altogether and everyone loses.

edit on 2-1-2011 by HunkaHunka because: (no reason given)

It was not the unions that created this mess.

It was affirmative action. In the 60's Ford went to the streets of Detroit and hired anyone that was black in order to satisfy the affirmative action quota. GM did the same in Flint. By the time Japanese competition began the Big Three had a disproportionate amount of blacks in the workforce. My father and brother both worked at GM and they both complained all the time about how the blacks just didn't care about anything but getting away with as little as possible. This is from two men that were very unbiased and non racist up to that point.

This is why American auto quality lacked. This is why it fell. Open your eyes. Detroit has a 47% illiteracy rate. It is 81% Black population. No coloration to why it is failing?

I grew up in the Ghetto until I was nine years old. You have no clue what its like....

Edit to add:

Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. .
When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black. .
Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.

This song says it better than I ever could and it was written over 25 years ago.
For those who thought the Dead Kennedys didn't have anything relevant to say - check the lyrics out.
This Could Be Anywhere

reply to post by LoneGunMan


Pulling the race card as a blame for these woes is about the lamest cop out excuse I've ever heard. A big reason why the US automakers failed was sheer arrogance. They were used to having a monopoly on the market without serious competition from outsiders and people bought whatever they produced. When the foreign automakers came over to the US, with them they brought innovative ways of producing quality cars for less. The US automakers didn't take the foreign automakers seriously, so they continued to just put out the same product regardless of quality thinking people would just buy it as usual. The lack of taking protective measures to secure their dominance came back to bite them when the foreign auto-makers started seriously infringing on their dominance in the early 90's.

Has it occured to anyone that no one thing caused Detroit's collapse, but the correct answer is "all of the above"?

Posters to this thread have brought forward a lot of astute observations and done some good critical thinking. It is basiclly all true. The "perfect storm" of multiple forces working together to take a once glorious, thriving high art metropolis and turn it into a dung heap.

Scary huh? The same thing could be happening to other areas of the US and potentially most of the country. There might be pockets that survive somewhat in tact. I do not hold out much hope for rising nations like China because their form of capitalism is possibly even more heartless and soulless than America's was.

Without a moral backbone any society will be nothing better than a rats nest with the nasiest and ugliest being at the top of the heap.

reply to post by LoneGunMan


Actually I have lots of clues what it's like...

You obviously have a hard time telling the difference between race, culture, and upbringing.

reply to post by LoneGunMan



Firstly, Not ALL American vehicles were built in Detroit by inner city Blacks who were hired due to affirmative action as is implied.
Americans around the country were building American vehicles. Not only in Detroit.

Secondly, When everyone had a job, as when Americans cars were selling well in the 60's, there weren't impoverished ghettos in Detroit. All of those houses were built and owned and well kept by working class White and Black families.

The downturn in Detroit as a result of the the US Auto Industry was a result of management or should I say mismanagement in not changing with the times, when foreign imports were cheaper and more reliable as well as later being more fuel efficient.

The American Auto manufacturers were still using the same old factories building the same old inefficient technology, wrapped in new sheet metal, in order to maximize profits, with little regard for what the consumer wanted.

Please Watch a very good movie about Flint Michigan , called Roger and Me. About then General Motor's CEO Roger Smith. He initiated the layoffs for profitability program in the early 80's at GM.

W. Edwards Deming, the father and inventor of quality methods was fired by Ford after WWII. He had perfected statistical quality methodology allowing the US to produce defect free, quality war materials from Sherman Tanks to P-38 Lightning Aircraft to M-1 Carbine Rifles.

Soon afterwards he went to Japan providing Quality Seminars to the Japanese. He was soon hired by Mr. Toyoda and Quality caught on like wildfire amongst the Japanese and as it is often said, the rest is history.

Originally posted by Blaine91555
You should look into places where this has not occurred. Ironically those area's are the ones least affected by the recent economic decline. Alaska has seen little impact. North Dakota is doing well. Texas is doing well. The more Unionized and Progressive an area is, the worse shape it's economy is in right now. Those are simple facts, not conjecture. All the worst hit areas have two things in common; a strong Union presence and a Progressive leaning government.

Ever hear of Windsor, Ontario (it's in Canada)
They were considered a 'sister' city to Detroit but there is no resemblance between the two today. Though they are both auto manufaturing towns and have been forever, Windsor is across the Detroit River, same union UAW, same devastation when the Big 3 crashed the economy etc but check out this very telling headline...."Windsor, Ont., goes murder free through 2010"...
Seriously, do you think it our politics, local or provincial, the unions what IS the difference?
I'll tell you, it is the sense of entiltement that these citizens have, the same one that entiles them to do crack and heroin, and strip cars and construction sites and make over $100,000/year screwing screws and pooches. Cmom Detroit time to get it together like your sister city to the north. Man up!!!!

Give blacks a city and they will destroy it.Im sorry but its true i really dont know why they can not live normally and peacefully i am not racist but it is the same in my country where most of brown people live is a completely disgusting part of the city wrecked by gangs etc.

This photographic journey through a micro-cosmal apocolypse is simply startling. I honestly don't know how to feel when I look at something like this. Is this the future for many other cities in America? Is that possible. When I was in University, we studied something called hegemony in decline. It was a study of how all great and powerful civilizations eventually decline, from Rome to Greece, history is consistent in this singular rule. I remember how it made me feel when the obvious conclusion that America would also suffer this decline...like a hit to the gut. I hadn't even considered that this was a possibility, so myopically entrenched in the thought of eternal dominance that the very thought of America's loss of world dominance was, quite simply, not in my programming.

Originally posted by LarryLove
A few posters have said that there is a large Iraqi immigrant community to Detroit. For all anyone says about immigrants (and I don't care for any right-wing thoughts), they now how to set up and make successful small businesses to service the community. Can any member from Detroit comment on this?

I work in the area with the large Iraqi community (hence the video I put up). How are they succesful?? They take care of each other, when someone opens a business they all shop there and support there own. There is a ton of cash floating around the community. When I say a lot check out this link

www.icofa.com...

This building sits near ford rd and evergreen, I got to go through it when it was being built and it is unbelievable inside. There is also a full concrete basement underneath, and steps to get to the towers. Rows of chandeliers that a gentlemen told me were 40k each, very nice.

reply to post by In nothing we trust

Devils Night fires might have died down since the peak in the mid 80's, but arson fires have not. I think Detroit has more working structure fires on a daily basis per capita than any city in the US. Plus they are doing it with equipment and trucks that dont always operate properly.Probably a third of their stations are shuttered daily for lack of funds to operate them.
.

Originally posted by 6-ENGINE
reply to post by In nothing we trust

 

Devils Night fires might have died down since the peak in the mid 80's, but arson fires have not. I think Detroit has more working structure fires on a daily basis per capita than any city in the US. Plus they are doing it with equipment and trucks that dont always operate properly.Probably a third of their stations are shuttered daily for lack of funds to operate them. .

Sounds like a bad situation

It's probably depressing for the firefighters

While it's shocking to see what's happened to Detroit, it's also a warning. If any large industry in our cities should suddenly pack up and move, we could be facing similar crises. I hope some how they are able to clear out this rubble, and become a great city again. It might take decades, but I believe it can be done.
Not the old Detroit, it can't go back to the way it was. A New Detroit.

Originally posted by In nothing we trust

Originally posted by 6-ENGINE
reply to post by In nothing we trust

 

Devils Night fires might have died down since the peak in the mid 80's, but arson fires have not. I think Detroit has more working structure fires on a daily basis per capita than any city in the US. Plus they are doing it with equipment and trucks that dont always operate properly.Probably a third of their stations are shuttered daily for lack of funds to operate them. .

Sounds like a bad situation

It's probably depressing for the firefighters

edit on 3-1-2011 by In nothing we trust because: (no reason given)

I can tell you what does happen is a selective arson. What I mean is a house will be raided, or some one killed, and the next day when I go by the house its burned down. People have told me they would rather live next to a burned up house than be in fear over living next to a dope house

This kind of decline while extreme in Detroit is also creeping into just about every major urban city in the USA.

Why the focus on Detroit?

I've seen a lot of these places first hand, and I can tell you from personal experience that it is depressing to watch this great country fall, slowly and painfully from the greatness it once had.

And one can only imagine how much worse things would be if it was not for TRILLIONS of federal stimulus dollars funding state projects etc. So many great states are broke, in debt and deficit spending like crazy just to keep the illusion going and to hold back a seemingly inevitable collapse... The US has lost too much manufacturing, industry and JOBS... and throwing money at it isn't helping, extending benefits, grants and more stimulus moneys are only buying time. Politics as usual, but it is completely unsustainable, eventually states and cities will fail and find themselves much like Michigan and Detroit, and when they hold their hands out to the Federal Government and there are no more funds what will happen?

Maybe there will be a miracle and complete collapse can be avoided... But if it isn't and you wake one day to find that Detroit has come to your neighborhood what will you do?

reply to post by ANOMALY502
I could imagine. When the city defaults and they cant pay emergency services thats when the real monster will show it self. I saw the South Bronx during the early 80's and it looked like Dresden during the bombings in WW2. Charlotte St was determined the be the most dangerous street in America. Today that street is single family dwellings with white picket fences. 30 yrs ago it was a wasteland. The Bronx was transformed , but I dont see Detroit doing the same. Stay safe , keep low. Brother. 6 engine

Originally posted by maythetruthbeknown
reply to post by HunkaHunka

 

Was just looking at this on the guardians website. Was deciding whether to post, but got caught up looking at other threads while searching, you know how it goes.
The city is near on derelict ,such a shame.With most of the industry gone and a spiralling crime rate not much can be done......hmmm thinks to self *if only the US government had not wasted all that "bail out money" or maybe not spent so much on arms* then things could be different.
Detroit could go two ways in my opinion. Either total abandonment (apart from the dregs) or a massive redevelopment project which would take years.
They could in the future just tear it all down and develop the first ultra modern city in the USA. Cut a small percentage of the defence budget for a few years that should cover it.
Anyway good post. take care.
regards

This is just a sign of more things to come around the whole US of A. Also I looked at those pictures and many of the ballrooms (didn't know that detroit had so many) that where shown and even the library (with books still in it) abandoned. Detroit was a compared to a second New York during it's time, huge growth etc. etc.. People came to the two cities Chicago and Detroit back in the day if they couldn't get to New York. See this in a town near you.

What the city needs is a thinker. someone to revitalize it like John Fetterman is trying to do with Braddock Pennsylvania.

BRADDOCK