Why Did DETROIT Go Down the Shitter?

Honda. Toyota. Datsun. Nissan. Take your pick.

Demographics

[quote]So many beautiful old homes left abandoned and destroyed. Sad.

But Biden will send billions to Ukraine for reconstruction.

Mayor Coleman Young and Mother Waddles

Corrupt, local government.

Coleman Young for sure.

Watch Roger and Me, Michael Moore's last good documentary.

I worked in the city for a short time (mid-aughts) and lived in the surrounding suburbs for years. It's an underrated, hidden treasure of a city. Quite a bit of artistic vitality and sophistication. The Detroit Repertory Theater puts on first-rate plays at ticket prices that are affordable for even a person of modest means. And John K. King Used & Rare Books is easily the equal of any of the great bookstores you'd see in N.Y. or S.F. Detroiters are smart and resilient and mostly friendly.

In short, lots of things to love about Detroit, so careful around me with the smack-talk.

I hate that we trash the history of places like Detroit. It does indeed have a rich history, and with some savvy business strategy, it *can* come back. The problem is that so many have left the Midwest and don’t want to go back to the cold, I’m not sure how you recruit workers to a cold zone like Michigan. Also, their governor will be the first female Prez, just my two cents.

We gays should move there and turn it into a Northern Palm Springs/WeHo/Provincetown etc

R9, you're spot on about Gretchen Whitmer. I think she might get to the top spot. Very appealing possibility!

Houses have been going for $20,000

Once industry left, so did the middle class. Once Detroit became largely minority, the state stopped funding it.

Ok, DL Gays, would you consider moving to Detroit? We would of course select the neighborhood with the most beautiful architecture. Houses for $20k?!? That gives me oodles of money to rehab it.

[quote]But Biden will send billions to Ukraine for reconstruction.

**insert eyeroll**

trump complained about it but as usually, did nothing.

We're gonna need muffs, r14.

You want me to feel sorry for beautiful old homes? Freak.

Greedy polticians

Union busting Republicans and free trade spouting, Wall Street ass-kissing Democrats.

Agree R9, R12 Big Gretch is it

R3 Detroit / Michigan got billions from Biden & the Dem Congress. A cursory search can help you be more informed. Biden has been in office just 2 years. Blame Trump.

“Most of the money is federal — about $3.1 billion coming from coronavirus relief funds and an additional $945.4 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress.

The biggest chunk of the money, about $1.8 billion, is allocated for various projects to improve the quality of drinking water. That includes nearly $1.3 billion in grants to support $750 million in drinking water infrastructure improvement projects around the state and $515 million in wastewater and stormwater projects, plus an additional $506 million to support loans for similar projects and to replace lead service lines for drinking.”

White flight

Also R3, it was Republicans, Sinema & Manchin who killed many provisions in the Build Back Better build that can uplift depressed areas like Detroit.

"But Biden will send billions to Ukraine for reconstruction."

People like R3 would begin foaming at the mouth if Biden would somehow divert money from the Ukraine to the Detroit. The only thing people like R3 hate more than giving our hard earned money to "furiners" is to give it to "n____rs."

Am I right, R3?

It really is a shame what happened to all that classic architecture. I see similar things happening in Chicago. On the plus side, Chicago builds housing far more frequently than its coastal rivals. But on the downside, they are a little too content with tearing down classic architecture, especially Chicago vernacular architecture. I don't want donwtown Chicago to end up like downtown Toronto where every building is just a generic condo.

$1.3mil house in what I assume is the “nice” part.

I have never been to Detroit, even though I have (had) first cousins there I have never met.

[quote]I have never been to Detroit, even though I have (had) first cousins there I have never met.

For reasons that are well known to you.

Well, yes, they are well known reasons to me. So what?

R29 it's a line from Mommie Dearest, dear

I think it was changes in the auto industry. Despite different brands, Detroit was essentially a one-industry town and when that started changing in major ways, there was no back-up. People got good wages for a long time and it allowed for the kind of vibrant cultural development R8 mentioned.

R9, I want Biden for a second term, based on his performance. But Whitmer is absolutely at the top of my list for President otherwise in 2028. She has had to face a lot of tough conditions and threats, but she handled everything in a way that showed her skills and judgment. Her state is expanding voting rights and increasing worker rights.

r14 Moving to Detroit is just picking up the bill for decades of corrupt politicians and selfish voters. Move to New Hampshire.

R31, it is really remarkable to think about the success she has had, in this nightmare climate, with sooooooo many obstacles against her. She is the very definition of a good leader. It is refreshing and it stands out because we do rarely get to see good leadership, and part of that is due to our for-profit media simply not giving it enough coverage. We DO have good people in government, unfortunately the way media works, you’ll never get to hear about it,

We need to change that, and we can’t wait on leaders to do it. Though I will say, I believe Whitmer is the type of person to take a shot at fixing media by fighting for a new FCC Fairness Doctrine. That ended in 1987, can you see the results yet? It’s been a fucking disaster.

Detroit's decay began in the 1940s with the loss of jobs in the auto industry, rapid suburbanization, and other things. Soon the city found itself in an irreversible state of urban decay. The city's population peaked in 1950 with a population of 1.85 million but in 2020 that had fallen to only 640,000 - that's a fall from around 700,000 in the 2010 census.

Not corrupt local government, no. Corrupt STATE government run by republicans. Corrupt PRIVATE bureaucracies attempting to put an end to democracy.

[quote] We gays should move there and turn it into a Northern Palm Springs/WeHo/Provincetown etc

There’s no we gays anymore. That was taken over by the queers who do nothing but whine and fight over which gender they’re going to be today.

[quote] Not corrupt local government, no. Corrupt STATE government run by republicans. Corrupt PRIVATE bureaucracies attempting to put an end to democracy.

Wrong.

[quote] Move to New Hampshire.

No one wants to move there. It’s ugly and boring.

No you're wrong, fool. Detroit lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs during the 1950s, that's when it all went to shit. And that was twenty years before Coleman Young.

[quote] Union busting Republicans and free trade spouting, Wall Street ass-kissing Democrats.

Who do you think you’re fooling? Not only have you never stepped foot inside Detroit but you couldn’t even find it on a map. Just keep pulling tired slogans out of your prolapsed anus.

R42, they did nothing to fix the problem. It’s corrupt as fuck.

Not as corrupt as Georgia and Georgia has been booing. You're not looking at the overall picture. You're confusing the trees for the forest.

booming

In the Americian system, cities do not have sovereignty. Only states and the nation do. Michigan is a prime example of where states have seized cities, taken them over and run them as dictators (and done a horrible job: see Benton Harbor, Flint, Detroit Board of Education, etc). Even where cities have been given some autonomy as in home rule, they have created things like quasi-sovereign boards like the (NY-NJ Port Authority) which are not answerable to voters and distort every financial decision made on behalf of a city.

This Dan Rather documentary on Detroit public schools is really good and tells you all you need to know why Detroit is so screwed up.

Charter schools are failed republican social engineering. For every "success" there are three times as many failures.

It was always a money grab.

Indeed when George W. Bush implemented charter schools in Texas a significant proportion of them, something like 10% were out and out frauds that never educated anyone and whose ci children were deprived of their civil right to an education. Texas tried to make it all "seem" like a success by faking test scores. And of course the aim was to divert tax money to private scammers, none of whom could operate a school as efficiently as the public sector, and when that failed, to divert them to online tutoring scams. And it was all adopted without a shred of evidence it would work, just republican belief that "unions" were to blame for schools. Fact resistant "belief" is as bad in Republican America as it ever was in Soviet Russia.

Meanwhile charter schools disrupted already marginal neighborhoods leading to an epidemic of youth violence.

And a key part of the program was ending teacher certification requirements, ending any pretense that the teachers were qualified to teach anyone. In many of the charter schools, the teachers couldn't read and write themselves.

So what are the historically classy Detroit neighborhoods?

R54, I believe Indian Village is one of the nicer Detroit neighborhoods.

With remote working becoming more common, if I were younger and not already settled (I'm 53) I would be very interested in buying and fixing up a grand old house in Detroit. Although there's still the brutal winters to contend with, so it would have to be an amazing house and a bargain so I could afford to travel to Mexico or somewhere warm during that time.

[quote]I worked in the city for a short time (mid-aughts) and lived in the surrounding suburbs for years. It's an underrated, hidden treasure of a city. Quite a bit of artistic vitality and sophistication. The Detroit Repertory Theater puts on first-rate plays at ticket prices that are affordable for even a person of modest means. And John K. King Used & Rare Books is easily the equal of any of the great bookstores you'd see in N.Y. or S.F. Detroiters are smart and resilient and mostly friendly.

[quote]We gays should move there and turn it into a Northern Palm Springs/WeHo/Provincetown etc

Now that the Democrats are in charge of the state, perhaps an overhaul of LGBT related legislation will make the Detroit- Ann Arbor metro area more attractive to move to.

R57 like what ?

R1 American car companies didn’t make cars as good or as cheap as Japanese companies. Also the American car companies were divested of in preference for more profitable investments. Weapons for example. I will only buy Japanese cars because the work well drive well and last forever. They are Better to drive, more safe, cheaper and more reliable. They don’t leak and run more cleanly.

[quote] Although there's still the brutal winters to contend with

Winter in the Upper Midwest isn’t half so bad as it used to be.

"[R1] American car companies didn’t make cars as good or as cheap as Japanese companies."

And they still don't. The only reason Ford and GM are still in business is the idiots who only buy US pickup trucks because they're "patriotic" despite the fact the Japanese pickups are just as good, if not better, than anything GM or Ford produce.

Off topic, but will the two gay guys who rehab inexpensive homes in Detroit be coming back to HGTV anytime soon?

You KNOW why, R61.

They said the suburbs are never the better option. 🤣

Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest, Boston-Edison, Indian Village, etc etc etc.

At least the freeways are designed below grade so you don’t have to look at it.

It was a 30 year decline. During WW II ,white southerners moved north to work in the Auto plants as part of the war effort. Blacks were segregated to just a few areas ( Redlining) . As that ended in the early 70's the blacks wanted to move to nicer neighborhoods.

The Detroit Jewish community , who had also been discriminated against, were the first to sell to the blacks and this incensed the white southerners. These racists abandoned the city by the mid 70's selling their homes for pennies on the dollar. The first wave of blacks who moved into the white areas were doctors and other professionals and they persevered against tremendous racial prejudice.

The second and third waves of blacks were uneducated and very blue collar and had more family members who were criminals. So that , along with a corrupt mayor in Coleman Young who played the race card at every turn, was the start of the demise of the city . Having only one main industry that was like Joseph and the grain storage ( 7 good years and then 7 bad years) didn't help either.

The whites come into the downtown for events but you rarely see them in the middle and lower class areas of the city . The border along Dearborn has seen an influx of Middle Eastern people over the last few decades and areas like Palmer Park and Midtown and Indian Village are attractive to whites who want to move back into the city but with increased security and gated streets to keep the criminal elements at bay .

Chicago should take note of this because they are about two years away from being Detroit if they elect Brandon Johnson mayor. Four years of race politics under Lightfoot has been enough to last a lifetime.

r56 The second you're finished putting your nest egg into restoring that old mansion, the city will just declare bankruptcy again and seize that house to pay off their corrupt politicians. I've got a bridge to sell you in Venezuela.

Detroit went down the shitter because of year after year of incompetent and corrupt city leadership.

Nonsense R68. What competent leadership has say New York ever had?

Detroit is a majority black city. For decades the office of the mayor(s) operated under the premise that the majority of citizens in Detroit didn't deserve and better so they just let the city rot. The black Detroit mayors were probably the worst of the worst for letting that happen.

NYC is a city of highly educated, well to do citizens, for the most part. Totally different from Detroit where a majority of the citizens are poorly educated and poor. The people of NYC are smart enough to not let incompetence in the mayor's office get too out of control. The the mayors themselves know they've got to produce at a certain level to keep the rich off their backs.

OP - just look in your own driveway for the answer.

Exactly R72

R72 well it's a restored 1964 Chevy Corvair but I get your point.

That said, Detroit does have cool stuff but unfortunately you will see a bit of blight going from one thing to the next. You just have to use common sense. Some areas are safe to walk like never, others are more bustling and safer.

"NYC is a city of highly educated, well to do citizens, for the most part."

Obviously, "for the most part" doesn't include such stellar dirtball scumbag New Yorkers like Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Roy Cohn and Bernie Madoff, all NYC born and bred.

R66, thank you for your post and concise overview of the city's history and and salient points. Well done.

The auto industry was doing fine through 60s. They built new plants in the area although Packard (big plant usually featured in destruction porn about Detroit) closed in the 50s when they merged with Studebaker and Hidson, left when they merged with Nash at about the same time). Detroit had one of the heighest rates of home ownership in the country through the 50s.

The '67 riots were a big turning point. I knew people from detroit, black and white who had the national guard in their neighborhoods and the riots were a signal event---whites gave in to panic selling in many neighborhoods. Houses went for pennies on the dollar in some places. The downtown and major secondary shopping areas like Livernois-7Mile and Grand River-Greenfield went into decline shortly after. the Black middle class also started moving to the suburbs, particularly the Southfield area. Plummeting tax base and corruption around what was left. After the riots, suburbanites were much less willing to come into the city and it is definitely a marker in people's attitudes even now. By the early 90s, huge sections seemed bombed out---I can remember being there in the 80s and the vibe was not great. Other cities that declined like Cleveland looked nowhere near as bad. Projects like the Renaissance Cnter made things worse by turning people's back on real urban neighborhoods.

Southern whites usually lived in the southern suburbs---places like Taylor and the downriver towns, far away from Jews or Blacks. White ethnics were more numerous in teh city and their attitudes are more important in considering the history of the city.

[quote] Detroit is a majority black city. For decades the office of the mayor(s) operated under the premise that the majority of citizens in Detroit didn't deserve and better so they just let the city rot. The black Detroit mayors were probably the worst of the worst for letting that happen.

When the jobs that sustain the middle class leave. Cities, towns, communities crumble, regardless of race. Detroit’s problems started in the 1940’s. No mayor, no city government is going to step in and magically fix Detroit, regardless of race. There are far more failed US cities, towns and communities (that were run exclusively by whites males ) that also collapsed after the jobs left. Yet no points them and blames their failure on white male leadership.

[italic]Straight[/italic] Outta [italic]Detroit[/italic]

Gorgeous! This would go for 3-4 times the price anywhere else

If I wanted to do a quick weekend trip to see the art museum and do a walking tour of architecture is it safe to stay downtown & not rent a car? I may be a weirdo but Detroit fascinates me.

I am curious too. It doesn’t seem like such a bad place for a city and it had a lot of beautiful architecture. I’m surprised other industries never blossomed

R8 for someone who didn’t know the city would it be safe to visit? I’ve always wanted to see it

I feel like if global warming and fires continue to get worse Michigan will fill back up. If I weren’t Canadian I’d move to Detroit

Like every other city. White flight carried the tax base out of the city.

But unlike other cities, whites weren’t lured back in during the 80s.

Gator left Baltimore for Detroit

The Riots.

These, essentially, changed everything nearly overnight.

Because it’s not walkable.

Incredible, R81.

Downtown is fine. If you want to see residential architecture you'll need a car.

[quote]Once Detroit became largely minority, the state stopped funding it.

Other Michigan cities say that Detroit continues to get an outsized share of state dollars

R36 And then their government denied them the full benefits to which they were entitled under the GI bill.

Shameful.

R66 and R78 really know what they're talking about. So many other good comments, too. When I first saw this thread, I thought it would die a fast death. Alas, DL never fails to come through on insightful and curious posters.

R54 The unfortunately named Grose Point neighborhood is said to be fancy.

Houses in Grosse Pointe:

My God so many ill informed comments here.

The 1967 riots did not start the decline of Detroit, they accelerated it. Detroit was already losing population by the early 50s.

Detroit was an essentially a one industry boom town. Enormously wealthy in the 20s-50s, but competition and market changes undid this dominance with disastrous results. SF Bay Area take note...

Grosse Pointe is an old suburb, not Detroit proper. It is still very affluent, with country clubs, a spectacular yacht club and the whole bit. A lot of the suburban wealth has moved north into Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills and beyond over the years, but GP is still a very nice area. In general there is a lot of money in the Detroit suburbs and a considerable level of sophistication.

SF Bay is not really a one industry area though. SF also excels in finance, law, supply chain, etc. Obviously tech is the big deal there though.

I've known some Detroit money---it isn't that "sophisticated". I've been to Detroit enough times to know that it seems like a hick town compared with Chicago or even Cleveland.

R14 No. I've spent a lot of time there and no. It's just too sad, There's a feeling when you're downtown that it is ringed by No Man' Land. You know that if you walk too far you'll be in a very sketchy area quickly. You can stand in the middle of the street during the day in many places and not see another living soul.

A lot of people love to compare SF and Detroit, but they are not the same thing. For one thing, SF is naturally beautiful, which is why people have long flocked there. Detroit was never beautiful; it was just a city where someone with low skills and a basic education could get a high paying job with benefits to support a growing family, so that is what attracted people. When the auto industry began to shutter, so did Detroit. Every industry could leave SF, and there would still be lots of people from all over the world wanting to go there to visit and live for the year-round temperate weather and gorgeous views of the landscape and surrounding water.

The cats move out and the rats move in.

Detroit at it's peak was beautiful in a similar way to Chicago. In fact, it had some of the best architecture in the country, probably the third best architecture in the country behind Chicago and NYC.

[quote] Now that the Democrats are in charge of the state, perhaps an overhaul of LGBT related legislation will make the Detroit- Ann Arbor metro area more attractive to move to.

Democrats in charge keep people away from these places.

[quote] The people of NYC are smart enough to not let incompetence in the mayor's office get too out of control.

Right.

[quote]Detroit at it's peak

Oh, dear!

‘Another difference between Detroit and the Bay Area is the Bay Area was a great place to be before the tech boom. The tech boom just attracted the greed and talent that made it what it is today. Personally I preferred it before.

The gays should all move to Detroit, buy up cheap housing, gentrify a gay village, etc. I could be great! Cannabis is legal (delivered to your door in fancy packaging - great quality and selection). Detroiters support the arts and have a renowned music scene. We could have festivals. The state gov’t is all blue. The state is surrounded by water. Let’s do it!

[quote]Democrats in charge keep people away from these places.

Please explain, r104, how the Democrats keep people away from Detroit-Ann Arbor.

[quote]The gays should all move to Detroit,

Oh, no. It's just too cold for my delicate features.

Plus, the constant need to moisturize!

The S. S. Kresge mansion, Boston-Edison

[quote]Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest, Boston-Edison, Indian Village, etc etc etc.

Also, the Joseph Berry Subdivision

Take a tour of Downtown Detroit on the People Mover!

[quote] Honda. Toyota. Datsun. Nissan. Take your pick.

Not true really. The American automakers in Detroit were too complacent and couldn't keep up with Honda. Toyota. Datsun. and Nissan. They didn't respond or pivot fast enough. Keep in mind that there were a huge amount of businesses in the Detroit area that were suppliers to the automakers, and when Ford, GM, etc slowed down, the suppliers and those employees took a huge hit.

Political corruption is also well known. The commissions managing the counties around Detroit were on the take for ages, as have utilities like DTE.

Japan made cars that worked well for a long time and didn’t leak oil water or anything. My friend had a Datsun B210 hatchback from 1976 that lasted till 2013. Incredible.

Everyone knows what Detroit is like.