Why I think Detroit is several decades from really improving (Ann Arbor: appointed, crime rates)

[Retroit]

Originally Posted by Tekkie

I wonder if they can relocate these people to the inner core of the city, at least as an initial plan to consolidate and remove the deteriorating outskirts.

There was a proposed plan to consolidate them in little "villages" sprinkled throughout the city, but it is on hold. The vacated land was going to be made off-limits (never specified exactly how that was going to work).

Also, I'm not sure if moving them to the inner core (i.e. downtown) would be the best solution. Presumably housing would be more expensive there and these people are often the poorest of the poor, since otherwise they probably would have moved out already.

[jonnynonos]

Originally Posted by Retroit

There was a proposed plan to consolidate them in little "villages" sprinkled throughout the city, but it is on hold. The vacated land was going to be made off-limits (never specified exactly how that was going to work).

Also, I'm not sure if moving them to the inner core (i.e. downtown) would be the best solution. Presumably housing would be more expensive there and these people are often the poorest of the poor, since otherwise they probably would have moved out already.

I still don't get this plan, though. From what I can gather the "plan" is to then dump the unincorporated "Mad Max"-style hinterland under the jurisdiction of the county. So instead of Detroit paying for everything, it would be the county who would be responsible for patrolling etc.

I don't know much about how county government works but I would imagine Wayne County would fight that tooth and nail, and, if it really did happen, would explode their budget to unimaginable levels.

[Retroit]

^ I agree. I don't think it was really well thought out. It sounds good in theory: services could be stopped in these vacated areas and the city would save a lot of money. But the reality is these areas would still need to be taken care of at somebody's expense. You still have to cut the grass, pick up garbage dumped there, maintain passable roads for emergency vehicles, maintain water & sewer line integrity, would still need some public lighting I would think, etc. In other words, these areas wouldn't just simply disappear.

[fmax]

I posted the cite in a different thread.

Until these people are educated to a level which makes them productive or relocated into the prison system, the area including Detroit will not change.


"376,000 adults 16 and older in the City of Detroit read at a 6th grade level and below – which makes them not eligible to participate in work training programs, or even to study for the GED exam,"

[Astron1000]

I agree with the assessment in the title of this thread. But it's not just the city of Detroit. The whole region has a problem - at least in terms of population growth.

The population of the official MSA was 4,435,000 in 1970. Today, 43 years later, the MSA has 4,292,000 people. It's dropped from 5th-largest to 14th-largest. The area's Gross Metropolitan Product is now 3rd in the Midwest behind Chicago and Minneapolis.

Had the Detroit metro grown even at a modest 1.5% annual rate there would today be about 6.1 million people and would still be the 6th-largest metro. You can point to the dramatic loss of the city's population, but the truth is that the whole metro has "lost" 1.8 million people since 1970.

[Kaybeem]

Political authority in Detroit currently is in the hands of approximately 300,000 people - the adult members of its population. The Emergency Manager necessarily is a short-term stop-gap measure; the voters of Detroit will eventually return to power, for better or worse.

Only 5% of the adult Detroit population has advanced college degrees (approx 17.5k-20k).

Less than 20% of the adult population (approx. 75K) have college degrees, at all.

Almost 80% of the adult population (approx. 300k) have no better than high school diplomas.

This is a population profile formed during a different era, but it still is the source of real political authority within the city - before and after the Emergency Manager.

Until there is a material change in these statistics, it is unlikely that this city will have sufficient staying power to support a meaningful revival.

Current efforts by the Gilbert Organization and Detroit Medical Center to create a more educated population by incentivizing relocation into their particular parts of the city(i. e. Medical Center & Downtown) is a sound strategy for changing this statistic. But more is needed.

The M1 Rail project, development of Woodward , and recruitment of additional knowledge-based businesses will help, but this still is not enough.

Detroit will become a desirable location only when the people who have political authority are the ones with a credible vision of what a vibrant city is and what it requires to stay that way, and the economic wherewithal to implement that vision.

History teaches that enlightened owners of private property, who build real social institutions, are the most likely source of the required conditions - but only a "likely" source. There's no guarantee.

So, at best, Detroit is 25 years from a verdict on its current effort at revival. And then only if there is a sustained 25-year effort or some as-yet unidentified seismic change in the political configuration of what we call Detroit.

[jonnynonos]

If you set the bar for a full-scale "comeback" of all or even the majority of the 139 square miles, of course you are right.

I don't think anyone who hasn't been lobotomized is even considering that.

What's on the table is hopefully a rejuvination of downtown and, hopefully, to start, a few neighborhoods.

And there are plenty of major cities in the country with both extremely prosperous and extremely impoverished areas. Hell, most of them, probably.

[lvoc]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

If you set the bar for a full-scale "comeback" of all or even the majority of the 139 square miles, of course you are right.

I don't think anyone who hasn't been lobotomized is even considering that.

What's on the table is hopefully a rejuvination of downtown and, hopefully, to start, a few neighborhoods.

And there are plenty of major cities in the country with both extremely prosperous and extremely impoverished areas. Hell, most of them, probably.

Sorry but Detroit is pretty well unique. It is simply not a viable entity. No amount of gentrification in Downtown or Midtown is going to change all this. You might cut the central core loose...but that would leave the vast and deadly poor extra-Detroit in even worse shape..

The place need to be dissolved and folded into a bigger and stronger governmental entity. I think that both Michigan and suburban Detroit strongly oppose.

The place simply has to be rescued.

[jonnynonos]

Why? What is the population? About 650,000, probably.

Do you not think there are 650,000 people living in other crappy parts of Michigan? Do you really think Detroit is much worse than Flint? I'd rather live downtown than Ypsi, that's for sure. Or Westland. Or Inkster. Or Romulus. Or a lot of places.

In Chicago roughly half of it is a ghetto, or close to it. Huge swaths of the west and south side are no better than Detroit.

Up until recently New York was the same way.

Downtown Detroit can revitalize... slowly, with some luck, neighborhoods around the core do, then it grows from here.

Happening in Chicago and NY, not unprecdented at all. Yeah, Detroit has a lot longer way to go, but nohting is impossible.

[lvoc]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

Why? What is the population? About 650,000, probably.

Do you not think there are 650,000 people living in other crappy parts of Michigan? Do you really think Detroit is much worse than Flint? I'd rather live downtown than Ypsi, that's for sure. Or Westland. Or Inkster. Or Romulus. Or a lot of places.

In Chicago roughly half of it is a ghetto, or close to it. Huge swaths of the west and south side are no better than Detroit.

Up until recently New York was the same way.

Downtown Detroit can revitalize... slowly, with some luck, neighborhoods around the core do, then it grows from here.

Happening in Chicago and NY, not unprecdented at all. Yeah, Detroit has a lot longer way to go, but nohting is impossible.

Detroit in 2012 had 700,000 people with an average per capita income of $15,261

Chicago in 2012 had 2,714,000 people with an average per capita income of $27,940

St. Louis in 2012 had 318,000 people with an average per capita income of $22,060

Detroit has the infrastructure of a major city and a huge land area. But it has no income to support it.

Even well smashed St. Louis has half again more income per capita.

YOu cannot fix Detroit internally. It simply lacks the money. The income it is dependent upon is in fact income tax paid by suburbanites. And if you raise that you get further flight to the suburbs. .