Fewest cops are patrolling Detroit streets since 1920s Detroit — There are fewer police officers patrolling the city than at any time since the 1920s, a manpower shortage that sometimes leaves precincts with only one squad car, posing what some say is a danger to cops and residents. Detroit has lost nearly half its patrol officers since 2000; ranks have shrunk by 37 percent in the past three years, as officers retired or bolted for other police departments amid the city's bankruptcy and cuts to pay and benefits. Left behind are 1,590 officers — the lowest since Detroit beefed up its police force to battle Prohibition bootleggers. "This is a crisis, and the dam is going to break," said Mark Diaz, president of the Detroit Police Officers Association. Police Chief James Craig acknowledges he doesn't have as many officers as he'd like. "These officers do the most difficult job in the country, and they need to get paid more," he said. Starting pay for Detroit officers is about $14 per hour, Diaz said. Staffing challenges Deployment shuffle Autoplay
Detroit pays high price for arson onslaught Detroit — Arson is a raging epidemic in Detroit, destroying neighborhoods and lives as the city tries to emerge from bankruptcy. Even amid a historic demolition blitz, buildings burn faster than Detroit can raze them. Last year, the city had 3,839 suspicious fires and demolished 3,500 buildings, according to city records analyzed by The Detroit News. Burned homes scar neighborhoods for years: Two-thirds of those that caught fire from 2010-13 are still standing, records show. "Nothing burns like Detroit," said Lt. The Detroit News researched arson for more than three months and found that it remains a huge obstacle to renewal efforts following bankruptcy. Few neighborhoods were untouched by arson and the entire city bears its costs. "People don't realize arson is a felony. Aides to Mayor Mike Duggan, who has made fighting blight the cornerstone of his administration, declined comment on The News' findings or his strategy for reducing arson. 'Arson is like a cancer' The News found:
Crumbling, Destitute Schools Threaten Detroit’s Recovery Residents wonder how the city can ever recoup its lost population and attract young families if the public schools are in abysmal shape. “As we begin to rebuild this city and we’re seeing money and development moving in, people are understanding that there is no way we can improve Detroit without a strong educational system,” said Mary Sheffield, a native of Detroit and a City Council member. “We have businesses and restaurants and arenas, but our schools are falling apart and our children are uneducated. In protest over the conditions, teachers began a series of sickouts in recent weeks, inconveniencing many families and reducing classroom instruction time for many students who could ill afford it, but pushing the matter to the forefront. The problems predate the municipal bankruptcy. In recent decades, large numbers of people have left Detroit, which was once the nation’s fourth most populous city. Photo Academically, the district’s performance is also alarming. Mr.
Why Detroit's teachers are 'sick' of their inadequate schools Falling ceilings, mushrooms growing from walls, Detroit Public School teach have had enough of their schools’ poor conditions. Despite cautioning that school system is set to run out of money in April, state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley has announced his resignation effective at the end of February. He exits amid chaos, and another potential teacher sick-out. Read the full transcript of the segment below: JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, to Detroit, and a city school system in turmoil, plagued with decrepit buildings, financial uncertainty, a chronic lack of resources, and now a recent wave of teacher sick-outs. All of it is fueling a growing anxiety that the system could run out of money in coming months. April Brown has our report. Tonight’s story is in partnership with the American Graduate Initiative. APRIL BROWN: The playground at Detroit’s Spain Elementary and Middle School sat empty for weeks. This is your only playground? LAKIA WILSON: This is our own only playground. GOV.
Metro Detroit's transit is designed to fail If you live in Detroit and work in Livonia, you'd better have a car. Relying on a bus means long waits and long walks. The suburban bus system doesn't run at all in the job-rich western suburb because the city has opted out of public transit. Though the city bus system transports passengers to the fringes of Livonia, it doesn't touch the vast majority of the suburb's 35 square miles. And yet 4,300 people who live in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck make the trip to Livonia every day to reach low-wage jobs, according to an analysis of census data by Data Driven Detroit. That's the story all over metro Detroit. Where most poor people live, along vast stretches of the east and west sides of Detroit's core, there are fewer jobs per capita than in almost any other major city in the nation. More than 10,000 Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park residents travel daily to low-paying jobs in suburban communities that opted out of public transit, the Data Driven Detroit analysis found. Take action
Detroit Blight Battle To Take Down Abandoned Buildings Could Be Key To Bankrupt City's Survival DETROIT, July 25 (Reuters) - If you want to tackle Detroit’s thousands of abandoned homes and trash-strewn and overgrown lots, there are few better places to start than in Brightmoor in the northwestern corner of the city. “Brightmoor is arguably one of the most blighted areas in Detroit, which makes it one of the most blighted areas in the country,” said Kirk Mayes, executive director of community group the Brightmoor Alliance. “If you can tackle blight in Brightmoor, you can do it anywhere.” Local non-profit, the Detroit Blight Authority, aims to do just that, with a budget of up to $500,000 to clear 14 blocks of this neighborhood and more to come once it raises more funds. The group has hired 25 local residents, clearing an urban jungle of brush, trees and garbage to the point where occupied and abandoned homes are visible from the street and to each other. Of Detroit’s 12,000 fires each year, 60 percent involve blighted and unoccupied buildings. Getty Images
How Detroit ended up with the worst public transit | Local News Jim Storm has an easier time than most. In the region that gave America a set of wheels, the Ferndale resident hasn’t owned a car in years, leaving behind the perpetual repairs, insurance payments and gas pumps for the bus — and for him, at least, it works. The thought of someone actually ditching his car in metro Detroit, however, is virtually unheard of. Living within a stone’s throw of Woodward Avenue, though, it makes sense for Storm. During the week, the 43-year-old leaves his home in the morning, walks toward the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation stop near the southwest corner of Marshall and Woodward avenues, waits for one of the numerous Woodward SMART buses — one typically arrives every 15 minutes — and rides to the Detroit Institute of Arts, where he’s worked for years as the museum’s mount designer and fabricator. Storm knows his situation is unusual. How’d it get this bad? Ask that question — why is public transportation here so unreliable? The problem?
Detroit's Disappearing Population -- and Revenues Detroit is losing the numbers game, and that could have real financial consequences for the Motor City. Since 2000, Detroit has lost 25 percent of its population, slipping to 713,777 residents. That matters, because under Michigan law, cities with populations of more than 750,000 have special taxing authority. As the only Michigan city with more than 200,000 residents, Detroit has had a unique advantage. The state specifies population size rather than naming Detroit in its statutes because laws pertaining to a particular place require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. Gov. "I have no sense that the Republicans will do that, but of course there are no guarantees," says Fred Durhal Jr., a state representative from Detroit. Legislators will be torn between two competing notions, says Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The Republican majorities in both chambers contain few members with any connection to Detroit.
Crime, Not Debt, is Detroit’s Biggest Problem A couple months ago, Governing’s cover story, “Who Will Save Detroit?,” focused on some of the public- and private-sector folks injecting an exciting energy into the city’s economic development and revitalization efforts. But the answer to Detroit’s problems won’t be found in new business ventures or in how the city restructures its debt, say two Detroit women with stakes in the city’s future. Rather, they say, it’s in bringing crime under control and making neighborhoods livable again. Read the rest of this month's magazine issue. The two women are Kym Worthy, the Wayne County, Mich., prosecutor, and state Rep. “You can have all the urban development you want and attract all the business people you want, but if the city’s not safe, they aren’t going to come,” says Worthy. Worthy, known for prosecuting then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for perjury in 2008, is the first female and the first African-American to run the county prosecutor’s office. Want more urban news?