Detroit, Losing Population, Makes Plans to Shrink “The biggest problems are those people who are on the outskirts more than anything else, where neighborhoods have gone down to a point where it makes no sense to reinvest,” he said. “People will say, ‘Well, why not me?’ And I’m saying, we don’t have the money to do that.” Detroit is already shrinking on its own, of course. Recent census figures show the city, once the nation’s fourth largest, lost a quarter of its population in the last decade alone, leaving it with fewer than 714,000 people. But the losses have been spread around the city, meaning that vacant, dilapidated homes and empty lots speckle Detroit’s neighborhoods, rather than cropping up in consolidated, convenient chunks on the city edges, leaving a more vibrant core. And so, a contingent of private consultants and city officials like Ms. Among the dismal findings: more than 100,000 parcels, private and public, are vacant; and only 38 percent of Detroiters work in the city. Photo “I’m going to stay right here,” said Mr. Mr.
Anatomy of Detroit’s Decline - Interactive Feature Mayor Coleman A. Young of Detroit at an event in 1980. Richard Sheinwald/Associated Press The financial crisis facing Detroit was decades in the making, caused in part by a trail of missteps, suspected corruption and inaction. Here is a sampling of some city leaders who trimmed too little, too late and, rather than tackling problems head on, hoped that deep-rooted structural problems would turn out to be cyclical downturns. Charles E. Edward Jeffries, who served as mayor from 1940 to 1948, developed the Detroit Plan, which involved razing 100 blighted acres and preparing the land for redevelopment. Albert Cobo was considered a candidate of the wealthy and of the white during his tenure from 1950 to 1957. Coleman A. Kwame M. Dave Bing, a former professional basketball star, took office in 2009 pledging to solve Detroit’s fiscal problems, which by then were already overwhelming. Related
Detroit: What a city owes its residents - latimes Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Above: A person walks… (Spencer Platt / Getty Images ) Though it is the biggest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy, Detroit is only one of 26 urban municipalities that have gone into bankruptcy or state receivership for fiscal insolvency since 2008. The Bankruptcy Court will have to face that question. Politicians and judges who manage local fiscal crises speak of maintaining basic services and ensuring residents' minimal health and safety, but these concepts are short on specifics. As a matter of law, there is no such thing as a crime rate that is too high or an ambulance response time that is too long. For now, it is left to politics and moral judgment to determine whether it is acceptable that less than 1 in 3 streetlights are operational in Detroit or that the city has 80,000 abandoned and blighted structures that it cannot afford to demolish. Paying for such commitments should not just be the burden of creditors.
Detroit on the edge The following script is from "Detroit" which aired on Oct. 13, 2013. The correspondent is Bob Simon. Tanya Simon, producer. Few cities have provided more to more Americans than Detroit. When it filed for bankruptcy in July, it became the largest American city to do that and admit defeat. It wasn't a sudden blow; a hurricane or a tornado. The bankruptcy filing just confirms what residents had known for years: the city that was once an industrial capital of America had hit rock bottom. It looks like it has lost a war. Detroit has long been a playground for arsonists, yet during a decade of massive budget deficits, the city has lost a third of its cops, a third of its firefighters. Bob Simon: Now, how long have you had this leak? Jonathan Frendewey: The leak's been going on for probably a year we've been reporting it. Which happened recently when Frendewey and Jeremy Mullins responded to a car fire. Bob Simon: So the occupants were out there watching their house burn down? Kevyn Orr: No.
Detroit's population loss slows; some suburbs see gains Detroit continues to lose residents, but the population loss appears to be slowing, with about 1% moving out between 2013 and 2014, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. In the tri-county area, the Oakland County suburbs of Lyon and Oakland townships and Sylvan Lake, as well as Macomb and Washington townships in Macomb County grew the fastest, according to the estimates. The census makes the estimates annually based on a review of birth and death records, as well as migration. Demographer Kurt Metzger said Detroit's population loss appears to be easing. "It continues to average about 1% loss per year," said Metzger, now mayor of Pleasant Ridge. By the city's estimates, Detroit lost about 1,000 residents per month in 2013; that slowed to 500 in 2014, and the number is even lower in 2015. "We have seen a significant slowing of people leaving the neighborhoods, and it will continue to improve," Mayor Mike Duggan said.
The Downfall Dictionary: Charles E. Bowles: another mayoral Klandidate Source: freep.com Hampered in large part by the sensational murder trial of David Curtis Stephenson and the widespread exposure of corruption in the Indiana government that followed, the Ku Klux Klan had lost much of its influence by 1929. Charles E. Detroit was proving to be a popular destination for eastern and southern European immigrants during the 1920s. Bowles' opponent was a natural Klan enemy. In 1925, Bowles again ran for mayor with Klan support. It wasn't exactly a good time to be coming into office. Other decisions soon made Bowles an unpopular man. Though he'd come into office promising reform, Bowles' ideas of doing so were not well-received. Most controversial were Bowles appointments to different political offices. It seemed like the only way to realize the promised reform was to act on the vice problems while the mayor's back was turned. When Emmons said he intended to continue his crackdown on the vice problems, Bowles dismissed him and replaced him with Thomas C.
Industrialism; urban decay; Census; The collapse of Detroit - latimes Imagine for a moment that every single person living in the city of San Jose, plus another 150,000 or so, just up and left. Vanished. Poof. Gone. That is, in effect, what has happened to the city of Detroit, according to 2010 U.S. It's an unprecedented collapse of a major American city. In Detroit, the loss amounts to a staggering 60% of the city's peak population. There are all sorts of implications here, both for Detroit and for the nation. But there are two larger issues that have broader national implications. The second is, what are we going to do about it? Detroit has played a significant role in my life. The collapse of Detroit has roots in intentional de-industrialization by the Big Three automakers, which in the 1950s began aggressively spider-webbing operations across the nation to produce cars closer to regional markets, and to reduce labor costs by investing in less labor-friendly places than union-heavy Detroit. Racism plays a significant role too.
Detroit is burning: Mysterious arson fires plague renowned public art project DETROIT, Mich. — The air on Heidelberg Street reeked of smoke one recent morning. Char and ash darkened the snowy sidewalks. But the color remained: shocks of red and yellow and blue that polka-dot this blighted east side neighborhood, making it one of the city’s leading tourist attractions. For 27 years, The Heidelberg Project, founded by artist and Detroit native Tyree Guyton, has arranged found objects — tires, televisions, toys — with artful grandeur, transforming vacant homes and lots along more than two blocks into an outdoor art museum unlike any other. “It’s true to the city,” said executive director Jenenne Whitfield. “Detroit is a city of originality.” But The Heidelberg Project is under attack. Eight arsons since May — the most recent on December 8 — resulted in four of the seven main Heidelberg houses being burned to the ground. The Heidelberg staff is mystified as to why they are targeted. “We have what we believe is a new canvas. Related:
DPS math, reading scores still bottom in national test For the fourth time in a row, Detroit ranked last among urban school districts that participated in a rigorous national test, with students showing no significant improvement in math or reading. Detroit Public Schools fourth- and eighth-grade students were among children in 21 cities who took the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam as part of the Trial Urban District Assessment. The Detroit scores showed a slight increase in math proficiency, but also a slight decline in reading proficiency, from 2013 to 2015. The changes were so small they were "not statistically significant," said Peggy Carr, acting commissioner for the Washington, D.C.-based National Center for Education Statistics. "Detroit has a bit of work to do," Carr said during a conference call. U.S. On Tuesday, he offered advice, saying Detroit should look at what's happened in urban areas such as the District of Columbia. "They've seen real and sustained improvement," Duncan said. How Detroit students fared
Root Causes of Detroit’s Decline Should Not Go Ignored Recently Detroit, under orders from a state-appointed emergency manager, became the largest U.S. city to go bankrupt. This stirred predictable media speculation about why the city, which at 1.8 million was once America’s 5th-largest, declined in the first place. Much of the coverage simply listed Detroit’s longtime problems rather than explaining their causes. For example a Huffington Post article asserted that it was because of “racial strife,” the loss of “good-paying [sic] assembly line jobs,” and a population who fled “to pursue new dreams in the suburbs.” Paul Krugman, who has increasingly become America’s dean of misguided thinking, downplayed the city’s pension obligations, instead blaming “job sprawl” and “market forces.” The implication is that Detroit’s problem just arose organically from structural economic changes, and within decades somehow produced a city of abandoned homes and unlit streets. The foremost measure would be addressing taxes. Photo by Kate Sumbler.
When it comes to pensions, California is no Detroit The Detroit bankruptcy court judge's ruling that employee pensions are "on the table" for potential reductions has spurred yet another round of acrimonious debate between those on the right who blame public-sector pensions for virtually all of government's fiscal problems and employee unions that deny there's a problem at all. Neither side is right. Most of the pension funds in extreme crisis (including those in Illinois, Kansas, Detroit and Chicago) got that way not because of the pension system itself but rather because elected officials failed to make the annual required contributions needed to keep funds solvent. Skipping these payments was politically expedient during the Great Recession, but the unpaid bills compounded quickly. SOCAL POLITICS IN 2013: Some rose, some fell -- and L.A. lost its women, almost The amounts now owed to some of the worst-funded plans, like Detroit's, are beyond the realistic ability of their sponsoring governments to pay. That's all it would take.