Detroit Fire Department has hired new ambulance staf. Detroit pays high price for arson onslaught. Report Shows Real Factors Behind Detroit Crisis: Revenue Decline, Wall Street Deals Play Largest Role. Modest Pension Benefits Play Little Role in Financial Crisis DETROIT — In their push for bankruptcy, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and other public figures are incorrectly looking at Detroit’s long-term debt—figures generated using aggressive and in some cases inaccurate assumptions—to the detriment of solving the City’s immediate cash-flow crisis and its long-term structural challenges, according to a report released Wednesday by Demos.
Detroit is not a corporation, it’s a city, and its bankruptcy proceedings have been focused on the wrong numbers. The Detroit Bankruptcy shows how the current bankruptcy filing is the result of a severe decline in revenue, caused by the 2008 financial crisis, and cuts in annual state revenue sharing starting in 2011. Risky Wall Street deals further jeopardized the city’s public finances by threatening immediate payments that the city could not afford. Detroit firefighter shares hundreds of photos showing 'Death of the Motor City' DETROIT, MI - Shane Klug doesn't want to hear ill-informed smack talk about Detroit.
The city is far from fixed, and the 40-year-old Detroit firefighter is in a unique spot to document the city's most obvious struggles; he has no reservations about showing the world the parts of Detroit that haven't been touched by redevelopment, but those who aren't from the city are better off keeping their mouths shut, he thinks. "Detroit's like your sibling, like your crazy sister, and you know she's crazy, but no one else better say that about her," Klug said over breakfast at Zeff's Coney Island in Eastern Market. Klug has been fighting fires -- countless fires -- since 2002 in Detroit, a city that's fascinated him since the first time he drove through it with his dad in the '80s. "I'd never seen ruins like this," he said.
"I'd never seen a city in decline like this, and it was something that enamored me. " To date, Klug has posted 1,126 photographs to the account. He only wants to tell a story. Fires burn across Detroit as high winds knock down power lines. By the CNN Wire Staff September 8, 2010 7:34 a.m.
EDT. Detroit Fires: Nearly 100 Homes Burned By Wind-Whipped Flames. Detroit firefighters say downed electrical wires and high winds are responsible for a sudden rash of fires that burned dozens of homes on the city’s east side Tuesday afternoon.
No injuries or fatalities were reported, but the flames burned 85 homes, including 18 that were vacant, the Detroit Free Press reported. As many as 50,000 people were left without electricity. Wind gusts of up to 50 m.p.h. were responsible for spreading the flames, according to the National Weather Service. One resident, Louvenia Wallace, 31, told the Free Press she and her children fled their neighborhood and had to stay at a nearby home in a safe area. “It was like blankets of smoke everywhere and the next thing I know everybody’s house was in fire.” The rise and fall of Detroit: A timeline. Sign Up for Our free email newsletters On Thursday, Detroit made history — and not in a good way.
The heart of the U.S. auto industry and home to the Detroit Tigers, Eminem and the White Stripes, Motown, and (maybe) Jimmy Hoffa's body became the largest city ever to file for bankruptcy. In many ways, this financial crisis is 60 years in the making. As the Motor City faces an uncertain future, here's a look back at some key dates in the long, storied past of one of America's great cities: July 24, 1701Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac establishes a French settlement, Fort Ponchartrain du Détroit (the strait), along with 100 French soldiers and an equal number of Algonquins. 1760Britain wins the city from the French. 1796U.S. forces capture Detroit from the British. Feb. 1, 1802Detroit becomes a chartered city, covering about 20 acres. 1827Detroit adopts its forward-looking city motto: Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus (We hope for better days; it shall rise from the ashes). 1899Ransom E.
Tech and innovation power Detroit's manufacturing revival. Similar efforts are under way in Detroit to foster innovation and entrepreneurism.
These include the Obama administration's manufacturing innovation institute, called Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow (LIFT), launched in January, and the philanthropic New Economy Initiative (NEI), an economic development initiative working to build a network of support for entrepreneurs and small businesses. "We don't support entrepreneurs directly, but the ecosystem that does," explained David Egner, executive director of NEI, which has raised $135 million to fund entrepreneurs and programs like LIFT.
Egner said that about 20 percent of its recipients are budding manufacturers, making things like heated motorcycle jackets, wooden pallets and carbon dioxide-based coolants for machinery. Many are former autoworkers who have hooked up with TechTown, a nonprofit innovation hub and incubator situated in a 135,000-square-foot downtown facility provided by General Motors. —By Bob Woods, special to CNBC.com. How Detroit's bankruptcy stacks up against its budget. Effectively, for now, Detroit is using the original Mayor’s budget with City Council’s reductions tacked on, though that will change if and when Orr’s amendments go through.
No word as of yet on what those will be, though they've been mandated by an Emergency Manager's Order. I used the mayor’s document and the City Council file to calculate how the money Detroit has set aside for bankruptcy contracts stacks up against other city expenditures, to give a sense of how much the money means to the city. Though $60 million appears a drop in Detroit's budget, it could still go a long way towards buttressing the city's anemic social programs and crime prevention measures. "Yes, you could have done something better with the $19 million [that Detroit has already spent], the high-level city official said. "You could have cleaned the streets or fixed the lights that are all broken.
Detroit's potential $60 million in bankruptcy contracts is 16 percent of its police department appropriations.