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This is a pretty weird article, without some kind of further support it really smacks of a manufactured narrative. As you say, the population - which the artic
by Bartweiss 9y ago
This is a pretty weird article, without some kind of further support it really smacks of a manufactured narrative.
As you say, the population - which the article insists is the key factor - shows no sign of recovering. It's simply ceased the plummet it was in during the economic crisis and preceding years. The rate of decline might be a bit slower than the 90s, but the second derivative is still 0. (If you made me offer a theory, I'd say 2008-2011 prematurely drove out people who would otherwise have left more gradually.)
I also noticed the line "Dreams of a house for a few thousand dollars seem like an old memory in some areas, where buildings can list for more than a million." The phrasing is circumspect; it carefully avoids saying that there are actually specific areas where home prices have gone from thousands to a million, and equivocates oddly between houses and buildings. Detroit was never all impoverished, and I have a sinking feeling that this sentence is comparing the current prices of Downtown Detroit to the past prices of northeast Detroit.
Certainly there are some bright spots in Detroit, the city's budget is less disastrous and the projects in bulldozing, resettlement, and urban forestry are a fascinating experiment. But all the evidence I can see says that a plan for Detroit which depends on a rising population anytime soon is basically doomed, whatever the changing look of the city.
- jrochkind1 9y ago> Detroit was never all impoverished Eh, it was pretty close. What neighborhoods are you thinking of? Places that are actually independent cities like Grosse Pointe don't count. Palmer Woods, maybe, I guess? Anything else?
- Bartweiss 9y agoFair question - I did have Grosse Pointe in mind, among others, and that is kind of cheating. Hopefully the NYT is careful enough that they're not comparing Detroit neighborhoods to inner ring suburbs, or the whole thing is sort of bust. I was also thinking about some of the Downtown blocks, but those aren't especially residential. I don't have a handy answer for a city-limits residential area which was doing all that well, at least not in ~2009 when things were at their worst.
- jrochkind1 9y agoDowntown was pretty much a ghost town 20 years ago.
- _rpd 9y ago> This is a pretty weird article, without some kind of further support it really smacks of a manufactured narrative. On the other hand, an article like this can contribute to the hoped-for revival. The media has considerable power. It seems ungenerous to criticise them when they use it for good, manufactured narrative or not.
- passivepinetree 9y agoWhat? It's absolutely fair to criticize the NYT for manufacturing a narrative regardless of intention. That's just dishonesty. It's not reporting, it's creating a story, regardless of if you think what they're creating is noble or not. If it's not lying to the public, it's pretty damn close.
- prepend 9y agoWhile you are certainly right, news is meant to be objective. Whether they use it for good or not makes them less useful as if they stop being objective then they will lose their ability to sway opinions for “good.” There’s also the issue of why would they do this good versus another. Is this the neediest city? What evidence do they use to target their good? Most charities and government have controls in place to focus this. If news goes against their charter to try to improve social good, what mechanism do they have to measure this? The NYTimes is a BCorp. They aren’t a charity with a board.
- randcraw 9y agoI suspect this is an 'archive' article -- a lightweight piece that's whipped up at a moment's notice or lay about idly until a slow news day comes along and something with snappy pictures is needed to fill a void. This news contains little that's especially new.