Shrinking Detroit
Posted by Big Gav
FTD has a link to an article on the decline of Detroit. I can't imagine that GM, Ford and Chrysler are going to prosper much in the future, so its hard to see this decline stopping any time soon.
I have seen some commentators suggest that there may be a rebirth of the northern US rust belts in the post peak world though, as it is well situated for water (canal) and rail based transport, and the climate is supposedly temperate enough to be good for small scale farming.
Rats or lead poisoning. When it comes to the threats from the broken down house next door, Dorothy Bates isn't sure which is worse. "When it's lightening and thundering you can hear the bricks just falling," the 40-year-old nurse said as she looked at the smashed windows and garbage-strewn porch. "If you call and ask (the city) about it they say they don't have the funds to tear it down."
There are more than 12,000 abandoned homes in the Detroit area, a byproduct of decades of layoffs at the city's auto plants and white flight to the suburbs. And despite scores of attempts by government and civic leaders to set the city straight, the automobile capitol of the world seems trapped in a vicious cycle of urban decay.
Detroit has lost more than half its population since its heyday in the 1950's. The people who remain are mostly black -- 83 percent -- and mostly working class, with 30 percent of the population living below the poverty line according to the US Census Bureau.
The schools are bad. The roads are full of potholes. Crime is high and so are taxes. The city is in a budget crisis so deep it could end up being run by the state. And it just got knocked off the list of the nation's ten largest cities.
On a related note, I was blown away by this tour of the ruins of Detroit when I encountered it some time ago. I wonder what other cities will suffer this fate in future ?
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