Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr threatens to sell off DIA Art Collection (Detroit: houses, neighborhood)

[scolls]

I got dibs on the Diego Rivera murals.

[Coldjensens]

I want a couple of suits of armor. Do they have my size?

[jonnynonos]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

I want a couple of suits of armor. Do they have my size?

Only if you are very small. Even the knights in shining armor back then were tiny by today's standards.

[scolls]

What else does the city have to sell? I think I would rather sell Belle Isle before the DIA.

[jonnynonos]

I can't imagine they have any assets they could conceivably sell off that are even going to put a small dent in $14 billion.

Wasn't the offer from Belle Isle from that kook private developer only $1 billion?

[animatedmartian]

National group of art museum directors urges Orr to leave DIA collection intact

“Art collections are vitally important cultural and educational resources that should never be treated as disposable assets to be liquidated, even in times of economic distress,” the New York-based association said in a statement issued late Friday.
...
The belief that a museum’s collection is held in public trust for current and future generations is a bedrock principle of the association and the museum field as a whole, the association said.

[313er]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

I can't imagine they have any assets they could conceivably sell off that are even going to put a small dent in $14 billion.

Wasn't the offer from Belle Isle from that kook private developer only $1 billion?

isnt that the same investor who put the condos down on boblo island

[MS313]

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anyone here but I have a question. This is art work were talking about. Can't they just sell it and have some more artist paint them some more pictures and donate it to the DIA??? Hell, this is actually a sad story and may be inspirational to alot of artist and they may donate to the DIA to get it back on track.

[maclock]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

Are you out of your brain?

The collection is valued around $3 billion, the city's long term debt is at least $14 billion.

That wasn't clear from the news outlets I consulted. A few of them suggested that the collection was sufficiently valuable to fully cover the long-term debt. If that's incorrect, then I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given the current standards of journalism.

[maclock]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

A very silly statement.

You personally see no value in fine art.

Get rid of the museum, the CSO, the Opera and you lose a HUGE competitive edge in what little cache Detroit, and in fact all of metro Detroit, has in attracting businesses to the area.

How do you compete with other cities to attract business when you can no longer offer even a semblance of sophistication?

Every thriving city in the world realized this long, long ago: Investing in green space, public institutions like the museum, beautification adds enormous "real world" benefit in terms of attracting businesses--which, I will give you the credit of understanding, means jobs and tax revenues.

Most people relocate for quality work, safe streets, good schools, tolerable weather, etc. Those are the things -- the basics which affect the day-to-day quality of life for the vast majority of people -- that folks value most highly. Corporations prefer places that offer a good business climate and sometimes low operating costs/taxes. If an area can offer good urban amenities, then that's a bonus and a serious advantage, but Detroit started losing any edge in that department about 60 years ago.

People and companies don't move to the Detroit area for the DIA, the Opera, the CSO, the museum, etc. That's just some window dressing offered up by people promoting the area to suggest that it's more cultured than the press would have you believe. The presence of such amenities is peripheral to the considerations of people and companies when they consider setting up shop. Moreover, I don't think that anyone is fooled by people pushing that stuff as being indicative of Detroit being the beating heart of a proper metropolitan area when folks see the current state of the city and experience life on the ground.

Detroit slid into crisis decades ago; the end game is now. To fix it, extreme solutions are required. Talk about fiddling while Rome is burning.