Detroit Area Employment — September 2016 : Midwest Information Office : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. News Release Information 16-2019-CHIThursday, November 03, 2016 Job Growth Up 2.0 Percent Over the Year Total nonfarm employment in the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn Metropolitan Statistical Area stood at 1,985,600 in September 2016, up 39,600 or 2.0 percent over the year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. During the same period, the national job count increased 1.7 percent. The Detroit metropolitan area is made up of two metropolitan divisions—separately identifiable employment centers within the larger metropolitan area.
Industry employment Professional and business services had the largest annual employment gain among Detroit’s supersectors, adding 18,400 jobs since September 2015. The education and health services supersector gained 9,100 jobs from September 2015, the second largest increase in the Detroit area. The financial activities supersector added 5,800 jobs, a gain of 5.4 percent over the year. Technical Note Definitions. Method of estimation. Annual revisions. Detroit was Killed by Decades of Environmental Abuse. The findings in this post-mortem of Detroit suggest that the city was killed by environmental abuse compounded by the failure to adapt to a changing economic landscape. Understanding the fall of Michigan’s largest city has important implications for cities across America and around the world. With a population of more than 700,000 people, Detroit is now the largest U.S. municipality to file for bankruptcy. Detroit’s seeming obliviousness to changing economic realities and history of environmental neglect have made the city unsafe.
This has crushed the local economy and contributed to one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Although the city recently adopted an ambitious sustainability strategy, it was too late to save the city from decades of ecological insanity. Detroit environmental abuse One argument explaining the demise of Detroit is that the city fell prey to rampant pollution and monumental environmental shortsightedness. The Great Lakes Works, a U.S. Transparency. Fixing Detroit’s Broken School System: Improve accountability and oversight for district and charter schools. Detroit is a classic story of a once-thriving city that has lost its employment base, its upper and middle classes, and much of its hope for the future.
The city has been on a long, slow decline for decades. It’s difficult to convey the postapocalyptic nature of Detroit. Miles upon miles of abandoned houses are in piles of rot and ashes. Unemployment, violent crime, and decades of underinvestment have led to a near-complete breakdown of civic infrastructure: the roads are terrible, the police are understaffed, and there is a deeply insufficient social safety net. There are new federal funds and private investment being directed to Detroit’s renewal. In January 2014, as part of a multicity study, researchers from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) met with a dozen parents in Detroit to learn about their experiences with education in the city. Ms. Today, Detroit is a “high-choice” city. School Choice with Few Options The dearth of high-quality options is evident to parents. Most States Funding Schools Less Than Before the Recession. A more recent version of this report is available here.
States’ new budgets are providing less per-pupil funding for kindergarten through 12th grade than they did six years ago — often far less. The reduced levels reflect not only the lingering effects of the 2007-09 recession but also continued austerity in many states; indeed, despite some improvements in overall state revenues, schools in around a third of states are entering the new school year with less state funding than they had last year. At a time when states and the nation are trying to produce workers with the skills to master new technologies and adapt to the complexities of a global economy, this decline in state educational investment is cause for concern. Our review of state budget documents finds that: At least 35 states are providing less funding per student for the 2013-14 school year than they did before the recession hit.
Restoring school funding should be an urgent priority. Why Have States Cut Funding So Deeply? Researchers find Detroit Public Schools have struggled from the beginning. Listen to the report here. Recently I was led through an abandoned building in Detroit. “The first time we came in here in 2013 it was still relatively intact. The power was off, but pretty much everything else was in decent shape. It wasn’t in great shape, but just a matter of months and this place was completely destroyed,” one of my guides told me.
So, who walked away from a perfectly good building, failed to secure it well enough to keep metal thieves out? The Detroit Public School District. “We’re inside Hutchins Intermediate School,” said John Grover with Loveland Technologies. “Hutchins was built in 1922. John Grover and Yvette van der Velde co-authored the report, A School District In Crisis. “Hutchins was one of the first purpose-built intermediate schools. LG: And when was it shut down? LG: That recently? “Yeah.” LG: Wow. “The damage that you see here was done in maybe six months. Grover told me it’s all about numbers. But many students wouldn’t be transplanted. This is not new.