What’s Going on in Detroit?
A really solid (and long) profile of Detroit from the Weekly Standard. The city’s numbers are astounding: 10k unsolved murders since 1960, no new textbooks for schools in 19 years, 24.9 percent graduation rate, 60k vacant dwellings and, of course, an 0 and 16 football team. It goes beyond the numbers, though, also doing a bit of a profile on journalist Charlie LeDuff who sounds like quite an interesting fellow (I’ve got the Slaughterhouse piece he won a Pullitzer for waiting to be read).
Part of what struck me in reading this was thinking about how much it sounded like the Baltimore depicted in the Wire (of which I’m now on Season 5).
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10 years ago I was doing work for O’gara Hess & Eisenhardt…an armory company in Cincinnati. Part of their business involved advising overseas travelers on threat-levels and chances of violence and stuff like that when they traveled abroad. I asked my client what was the most dangerous place to travel in the world. He listed the usual Middle Eastern countries, a couple in Africa, I think Mexico City…but then above and beyond any of that was the east side of Detroit. Nice.
Wow, just an incredibly well written article about the current goings on in Detroit by Matt Labash. One can actually see & smell the Dying City from the words of Mr. Labash. With what is going on in the good old USSA, not a typo, this could be a harbinger of other cities in America.
As a temporary resident of the “Big Crapple” it sets me straight on what can happen or will happen in the Land Of Plenty.
Mr. Brier for this You “Get A Dinner”! I can eat, live, & breathe Mexican food, & I’m not even Mexican, contrary to my last name.
You say you love the Tex/Mex, well, I know a place next to a luxury car dealer in a very hard to reach midtown area of Manhattan that will just knock you out with hi-quality Mexican food.
It will be on me, you deserve it.
Happy New Year: Mitchell Dominguez I’ll be in touch.
P.S. Give a listen to an old Gill Scott-Heron song called “Winter In America”, still stands the test of time and sounds like it was written yesterday.
Go to http://www.wolfgangsvault.com, sign up,FREE, and search for an old Gill Scott-Heron concert and absorb that song.
I spent 2 months in Detroit last summer (2008). It is, to put it mildly, a mess.
Nothing works in that city. From politics to crime to sports to business.
It is without question, the worse city in America.
I have friends there (one is a police officer) and they just have horror stories.
DETROIT: Detroit is a beautiful city. I have lived in many places in the US, but Detroit is my most loved city. However, Detroit could be a booming city again, with some minor changes: a. Rollback property taxes to where they were before the 1994 proposal A passage. Taxes went up extremely high. Homes in Detroit aren’t selling because of property taxes. b. Auto Insurance is another killer for the cities residents. No Fault Insurance is killing the prosperity of the city. It takes monies from residents that could be better used for other living expenses. The Insurance industry is the only ones benefiting. No Fault basic coverge is extremely expensive, and don’t replace or repair ones auto. In the 70′s, basic insurance was approx. $40.00, which gave permission to drive. That’s all basic No Fault does. permission to drive, why keep it at such cost to the residents of Detroit?
Thanks for discussing this particular post and making it public