What follows is a sampling of more than 300 comments following a New York Times' article Saturday on Gov. Rick Snyder's announcemt that Detroit is in a financial emergency and he will appoint an emergency manager.

 

·       Winston Smith

·       Chicago

Jonathan, as someone who grew up in suburban Detroit and now lives in Uptown Chicago, let me tell you that Detroit and Chicago are more than just 300 miles apart. Chicago is loaded with people from Southeastern Michigan. Go down the lakefront path and you'll see more people wearing U of M & MSU clothing than Illini or Northwestern jerseys. We're here because the economy of Detroit collapsed a long time ago. It was a one economy town relying on companies that made poorly manufactured products based on decisions made by men living in Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills. 

Does Chicago have problems? Yes. Is there corruption in the city? No doubt. Are the taxes high? I can't argue. But everyday I run along a beautiful, clean, lakefront path. When it snows, my side street is plowed and salted - something that hasn't happened in Detroit in 30 years. In the next couple of years I'll be using the new $145 million rehabbed Wilson El station. One of those crumbling bridges, the 90 year old Wells St. bridge, is being replaced this month. We former Detroiters look around and say there may be corruption and high taxes but it least it still works, at least there are still jobs. Chicago is no where near the Detroit I left 23 years ago.

 

·       CW

·       Maryland

It may be a wise move to consult with the UN before taking any action in Detroit.
Since our leaders have signed on to UN AGENDA 21, the land under Detroit is under UN control. There could be UN cash available for a 'bailout'. Perhaps that shale gas could be found in Detroit. Hope this helps.

 

·       smartgeema

·       USA

The wealthy elite whom you seem to worship as the all-knowing, all-wise, ideological saviors required to save Detroit were nothing more than petulant, pouting, selfish, cowards fifty years ago - as was evidenced by their spoiled-brat, mob-like behaviors, when they couldn't get everything exactly their own way in Detroit - so they simply packed up their toys and moved away, and not one of them did a single thing ever, to demonstrate any sense of civic duty or any kind of mature, adult responsibility toward their own fellow American citizens.

Take a good, hard, look in your own mirror, Kevin, before you continue on with your bully-pulpit, neo-conservative, hollow-sounding, rhetoric and with your self-satisfied, smug, patting yourself on your own back.

Detroit today is totally an American problem - and it is a problem which all Americans must finally all admit that we had some hand in creating. It is also one which we Americans must ALL now get to work solving - for Detroit is very soon to be repeated in a great many other American cities, ones much closer to you, and to me, next time around. 

If you don't think you are a big part of this Detroit problem right now, Kevin, then you are no better than any of those totally cowardly, but conveniently wealthy, elitists who simply refused to take care of their own responsibilities as American citizens, if they could't get their own way 100% of the time, more than 50 years ago in Detroit.

 

·       George Corsetti

·       Detroit

Detroit's problems stem from de-industrialization of the 70s and 80s and, most recently, the collapse of the national housing market. The right wing politicians would like to blame it on the city counsel and mayor -- all of whom are black. But the counsel and mayor were not responsible for shutting down industry and shipping it off to Mexico and beyond. And they were certainly not in charge of the banksters who destroyed the economy. 

Detroit was particularly hard hit by sub-prime mortgages which were aggressively marketed in the city, even to those who could easily qualify for better mortgages. Ironically the city counsel tried to pass an ordinance to restrict the sale of sub-prime mortgages. But the bankers lobbied the state legislature to block the city ordinance and, though it passed the counsel, it was vetoed based on the banker's new law. 

Massive foreclosures started early in the economic collapse of 2007 and the end result was tens of thousands of empty houses that were quickly stripped and then sat abandoned because it cost more to fix them than they'd be worth rehabbed. The bottom line was the destruction of the city's tax base. 

Now the state wants to kick out the elected mayor and counsel and turn the city into a plantation just like it did to the other black cities in Michigan, Flint and Benton Harbor.

 

·       severrw

·       Wimberley, tx

What does it tell you about Detroit only having Democratic Mayors??
The concept of fiscal responsibility has been lost on this city!
Let it go bankrupt, clean house and start over with true leaders, not politico's who don't seem to know, or care about being responsible to the people of Detroit!

 

·       handworn

·       Philadelphia, PA

Like many massive and intractable problems, Detroit's problem is actually simple: there's no reason to be there. The cost-saving and economies-of-scale benefits of physical proximity are mostly gone. Cars and gas are relatively cheap, so there's no reason to live within walking distance of a grocery store. Cheap land that doesn't require clearing to build on is everywhere. Smaller jurisdictions with fewer restrictions, lower taxes, less crime, fewer interest groups and more nimble governments are everywhere. Services and information, which have taken much of manufacturing's old place in the economy, don’t require proximity. Could Detroit have reinvented itself in time, the way many cities have? Possibly, but it was trapped in an iron maiden for too long, whose two halves were the automobile business and the unions. Also, it doesn’t have nice weather the way L.A. does, it’s not a tourist destination like New Orleans, and it’s not near anything else the way the East Coast cities are. What’s left is a Mancur-Olson-esque wave of destruction of ossified institutions, interest groups, rules and relationships which will hopefully restore the flexibility Detroit needs to be a competitive, vital place again. State control may be the beginning of this.

 

·       Jerry Middel

·       South Touchet, WA

I was born in Detroit in 1956. I can trace my families roots there to the early 19th century. I left in 1978.
I attribute the issue of Detroit's demise to two main points. First is racism. I grew up in a mildly racists family where my father's moto was "I will work with them, eat with them, but I will be damned if I will live with them". That from a lower middle class civil servant who moved his family from Detroit to MaComb County in 1962 and who NEVER voted Republican and continued to work in Detroit until 1980. Racism divided Detroiters.
Next point was the inevitable expansion of capitalism that predictably used up Detroit and its workforce until they found something more profitable.
I am encouraged by the bohemian artists movement to reinvent the city. Detroit will never return to its days of wealth and glory. Thats gone. But maybe something different and somewhat quirky is fitting for the future of a city that once defined modern capitalists production and the voice of labor.

 

·       Susan L.

·       New York, NY

I grew up in D.C. in the 50's & 60's. I (and then we) have subsequently lived in Boston, NYC, S.F., back to D.C., Rochester (NY), and then the biggest mistake of our lives - a few years in Detroit (we escaped [whoops; I mean we left] in mid-2008). We're still stuck owning a gorgeous condo on the top floor of a 1926 art deco building overlooking much of the city, if anyone's interested....not only are we incredibly thankful to live in NYC - for *myriad* reasons - but Detroit is and has *long* been the most corrupt, dysfunctional city in this country. I'm a lifelong/staunch Democrat, but I'm very well aware of Detroit's abysmal history - and the most egregious behavior & resultant destruction has emanated from local politicians (pre-Bing). We had the misfortune to live there during the Kwame Kilpatrick (aka The Kwamster) years and it was overwhelmingly miserable, aside from (what's left of) the gorgeous art deco architecture plus lots of good Middle Eastern restaurants. I have tremendous admiration for Dave Bing - but Detroit's problems are systemic & overwhelming, and I'm very pessimistic about substantive improvement.