8 ms·

Dibble's First Law of Sociology: Some do; some don't. Accentuating the positive is cold comfort. Tenth-century Rome hosted the development of Gregorian chant

Dibble's First Law of Sociology: Some do; some don't. Accentuating the positive is cold comfort. Tenth-century Rome hosted the development of Gregorian chant and papal charters for the first universities. Focusing on those positive developments doesn't change the fact that Rome was a step or two above a cow town compared to contemporary Constantinople or, better yet, first-century Rome. Of course Detroit has nice places and nice people. I saw examples of that and my brothers have seen more. The reason why so many people focus on the ruin porn is that Detroit has so much more of it than most cities of its size. Speaking of size, Detroit has lost more than half of its population in forty years. Satellite photos reveal that the city is steadily returning to wilderness. This happened to the premier heavy industrial city of what was supposed to be the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth. This is a flipping travesty! Similar decline happened to other American cities at the same time. Philadelphia. Saint Louis. Newark. The South Side of Chicago. Parts of San Francisco and Los Angeles. It nearly happened to the entirety of New York. Let's face it, these cities were more livable when they were run by ethnic machine politics staffed by people who squeaked through third-tier parochial colleges. What makes this ruin porn all the more infuriating -- and disturbing -- is that it started when the cool people with the right ideas from the Ivy League schools stepped in. This is what makes us really uncomfortable. We know that it's "incorrect" to say it. The urban renewal and racial integration policies that were ostensibly supposed to improve these cities have utterly and ignominiously failed.

ikarous 15y ago
"What makes this ruin porn all the more infuriating -- and disturbing -- is that it started when the cool people with the right ideas from the Ivy League schools stepped in." Post hoc, ergo proper hoc? I don't necessarily disagree with you, but don't you think that there might be more contributing factors? In particular, the decline of the American auto industry comes to mind in regards to Detroit.
- winestock 15y ago
  The American automobile industry didn't really get hit by imports until the Oil Shocks of the 1970s. By then, the productive population of Detroit was already fleeing to the suburbs. Also, if the decline of the American automobile industry explains the decline of Detroit, then the suburbs of Detroit would have declined as well, instead of expanding. Furthermore, the decline of the American automobile industry does not explain why similar declines occurred in the other cities which I mentioned.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    The suburbs of Detroit are also in decline. For how many years now has Michigan been in the bottom quartile for unemployment? The fact that Twelve Oaks Mall is nice and has an Apple Store doesn't mean that that the Detroit Suburbs are proof of a functioning greater Detroit metro economy.
    - winestock 15y ago
      "Decline" means different things when applied to Detroit and to its suburbs. The suburbs are much safer and have much better infrastructure, among many other things. Higher up in this thread, I referenced the book The Slaughter of Cities, by E. Michael Jones. That is the book around which my views have gelled.
      - quick_look 15y ago
        FYI, being better off than one's neighbor doesn't make one not poor.
- riceadam 15y ago
  Obviously the decline of the auto industry was a major factor in Detroit's fall but the civil unrest of the late 60s is what caused the "white flight" out of Detroit and into the suburbs. The city has remained unstable since for a slew of reasons, the biggest one likely being corrupt government. There's just very little incentive to live in the city itself anymore between the lack of small businesses, crime, etc. I heard a story of a guy who purchased an entire block of houses, demolished them, built new condos and was waiting on city inspection so people could start moving in. Inspection took a while and in the meantime the newly-built condos were broken into and stripped of any valuable piping/wiring. Does that really a place you want to live in? The only reasons I go into the city are for sporting events, the occasional concert, or urbex. The segregation of Detroit and its metropolitan area are SHOCKING. Look at this map: http://bit.ly/ptgVNe http://bit.ly/ptgVNe The blue is African-Americans. The red is Caucasians. The all-too-clear division begins at 8 mile. Some sort of link has to be established in order to unify the suburbs and the city. Hopefully the M1 rail project can be that link -- unfortunately, like I said in another comment, the rail has to stretch further into the suburbs for it to have any chance of success, IMO.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
krschultz 15y ago
New York and Newark are nothing like Detroit right now. Both are going through a great revival. There are a lot of reasons why, but it really has nothing to do with machine politics, ivy league educated people, or anything else you mentioned. In my opinion, most of the credit goes to better policing, everything else follows the drop in crime.
- roc 15y ago
  I very nearly agree with you, but I'd argue that policing has little to do with it as well. Detroit's crime rate has plummeted since the 1970s along with the rest of the US, despite no widely-celebrated crackdown. [1] Indeed crime rates have continued their drop from even the early 2000s despite a police department that was rapidly shrinking and increasingly mired in corruption/abuse investigations over that same time frame. What's holding Detroit back, imo, are uncompetitive services caused by too few funds to cover too much sprawl. Even as the downtown enjoys a modest revival, the neighborhoods are non-options for anyone who wants to own a home. Particularly when functional suburbs with lower taxes and great schools are less than thirty minutes down the highway. The city needs consolidation. [1] The only anti-crime campaign I can even recall, was the mid-90s community effort to combat Devil's Night.
  - eru 15y ago
    Perhaps they should take a look at how east German cities were and are coping with a shrinking population?
  - krschultz 15y ago
    Very interesting perspective, I'll admit I know little about Detroit although I have been there twice in the last 2 years for a few days on business so I have seen the city in its current state.
tptacek 15y ago
Urban renewal and racial integration are to blame, and not the destruction of the entire regional economy? Or, not to put to fine a point on it, did black people kill the auto industry too? I grew up on the south side of Chicago, by the way, and I don't know what you're talking about, unless your suggestion is that any metropolis that has bad neighborhoods is evidence of the failure of racial integration.
- winestock 15y ago
  The key word is ethnicity. The book that changed my way of thinking about the subject is _The Slaughter of Cities_, by E. Michael Jones. http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleansing/dp/1587317753/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313012498&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleans... "In his meticulously documented book, he proves that urban renewal had more to do with ethnicity than it ever had to do with design or hygiene or blight. Urban renewal was the last gasp attempt of the WASP ruling class to take control of a country that was slipping out of its grasp for demographic reasons. The largely Catholic ethnics were to be driven out of their neighborhoods into the suburbs, where they were to be "Americanized" according to WASP principles. The neighborhoods they left behind were to be turned over to the sharecroppers from the South or turned into futuristic Bauhaus enclaves for the new government elites. Using political tactics like eminent domain and "integration," the planners made sure that the ethnic neighborhood got transformed into something more congenial to their dreams of social engineering than the actual communities of people they saw as a threat to their control."
  - tptacek 15y ago
    "The largely Catholic ethnics" (I'm a Catholic of Irish and Eastern European descent) were not "driven out" of their neighborhoods. They left them as a reaction to integration and the beginning of the end of redlining policies. The "control" they lost was "the ability not to live next to ethnic minorities other than their own". Moreover, upon leaving the white Irish Catholic and Polish enclaves, mortgage lending moved with them, leaving the neighborhoods to be filled with residents who were systematically denied ownership of their own homes. The attending decline in property values and upkeep were entirely predictable. Again: we have a situation clearly explainable through economics, and you seem intent on injecting race into it. Why? Drive a few hours south from the (gradually but painfully resurging) south side of Chicago to southern Illinois and you'll find predominantly white towns that have been similarly devastated by the rural economy and the decline of small-scale midwestern manufacturing jobs, and methamphetamine. Also: you're not a little concerned that the "book that changed your way of thinking" about urban decay was written by a guy that has a whole section on the ADL's website, who has written of a "Jewish takeover of American culture"?

ikarous 15y ago

"What makes this ruin porn all the more infuriating -- and disturbing -- is that it started when the cool people with the right ideas from the Ivy League schools stepped in." Post hoc, ergo proper hoc? I don't necessarily disagree with you, but don't you think that there might be more contributing factors? In particular, the decline of the American auto industry comes to mind in regards to Detroit.

winestock 15y ago
The American automobile industry didn't really get hit by imports until the Oil Shocks of the 1970s. By then, the productive population of Detroit was already fleeing to the suburbs. Also, if the decline of the American automobile industry explains the decline of Detroit, then the suburbs of Detroit would have declined as well, instead of expanding. Furthermore, the decline of the American automobile industry does not explain why similar declines occurred in the other cities which I mentioned.
- tptacek 15y ago
  The suburbs of Detroit are also in decline. For how many years now has Michigan been in the bottom quartile for unemployment? The fact that Twelve Oaks Mall is nice and has an Apple Store doesn't mean that that the Detroit Suburbs are proof of a functioning greater Detroit metro economy.
  - winestock 15y ago
    "Decline" means different things when applied to Detroit and to its suburbs. The suburbs are much safer and have much better infrastructure, among many other things. Higher up in this thread, I referenced the book The Slaughter of Cities, by E. Michael Jones. That is the book around which my views have gelled.
    - quick_look 15y ago
      FYI, being better off than one's neighbor doesn't make one not poor.
riceadam 15y ago
Obviously the decline of the auto industry was a major factor in Detroit's fall but the civil unrest of the late 60s is what caused the "white flight" out of Detroit and into the suburbs. The city has remained unstable since for a slew of reasons, the biggest one likely being corrupt government. There's just very little incentive to live in the city itself anymore between the lack of small businesses, crime, etc. I heard a story of a guy who purchased an entire block of houses, demolished them, built new condos and was waiting on city inspection so people could start moving in. Inspection took a while and in the meantime the newly-built condos were broken into and stripped of any valuable piping/wiring. Does that really a place you want to live in? The only reasons I go into the city are for sporting events, the occasional concert, or urbex. The segregation of Detroit and its metropolitan area are SHOCKING. Look at this map: http://bit.ly/ptgVNe http://bit.ly/ptgVNe The blue is African-Americans. The red is Caucasians. The all-too-clear division begins at 8 mile. Some sort of link has to be established in order to unify the suburbs and the city. Hopefully the M1 rail project can be that link -- unfortunately, like I said in another comment, the rail has to stretch further into the suburbs for it to have any chance of success, IMO.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

krschultz 15y ago

New York and Newark are nothing like Detroit right now. Both are going through a great revival. There are a lot of reasons why, but it really has nothing to do with machine politics, ivy league educated people, or anything else you mentioned. In my opinion, most of the credit goes to better policing, everything else follows the drop in crime.

roc 15y ago
I very nearly agree with you, but I'd argue that policing has little to do with it as well. Detroit's crime rate has plummeted since the 1970s along with the rest of the US, despite no widely-celebrated crackdown. [1] Indeed crime rates have continued their drop from even the early 2000s despite a police department that was rapidly shrinking and increasingly mired in corruption/abuse investigations over that same time frame. What's holding Detroit back, imo, are uncompetitive services caused by too few funds to cover too much sprawl. Even as the downtown enjoys a modest revival, the neighborhoods are non-options for anyone who wants to own a home. Particularly when functional suburbs with lower taxes and great schools are less than thirty minutes down the highway. The city needs consolidation. [1] The only anti-crime campaign I can even recall, was the mid-90s community effort to combat Devil's Night.
- eru 15y ago
  Perhaps they should take a look at how east German cities were and are coping with a shrinking population?
- krschultz 15y ago
  Very interesting perspective, I'll admit I know little about Detroit although I have been there twice in the last 2 years for a few days on business so I have seen the city in its current state.

tptacek 15y ago

Urban renewal and racial integration are to blame, and not the destruction of the entire regional economy? Or, not to put to fine a point on it, did black people kill the auto industry too? I grew up on the south side of Chicago, by the way, and I don't know what you're talking about, unless your suggestion is that any metropolis that has bad neighborhoods is evidence of the failure of racial integration.

winestock 15y ago
The key word is ethnicity. The book that changed my way of thinking about the subject is _The Slaughter of Cities_, by E. Michael Jones. http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleansing/dp/1587317753/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313012498&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleans... "In his meticulously documented book, he proves that urban renewal had more to do with ethnicity than it ever had to do with design or hygiene or blight. Urban renewal was the last gasp attempt of the WASP ruling class to take control of a country that was slipping out of its grasp for demographic reasons. The largely Catholic ethnics were to be driven out of their neighborhoods into the suburbs, where they were to be "Americanized" according to WASP principles. The neighborhoods they left behind were to be turned over to the sharecroppers from the South or turned into futuristic Bauhaus enclaves for the new government elites. Using political tactics like eminent domain and "integration," the planners made sure that the ethnic neighborhood got transformed into something more congenial to their dreams of social engineering than the actual communities of people they saw as a threat to their control."
- tptacek 15y ago
  "The largely Catholic ethnics" (I'm a Catholic of Irish and Eastern European descent) were not "driven out" of their neighborhoods. They left them as a reaction to integration and the beginning of the end of redlining policies. The "control" they lost was "the ability not to live next to ethnic minorities other than their own". Moreover, upon leaving the white Irish Catholic and Polish enclaves, mortgage lending moved with them, leaving the neighborhoods to be filled with residents who were systematically denied ownership of their own homes. The attending decline in property values and upkeep were entirely predictable. Again: we have a situation clearly explainable through economics, and you seem intent on injecting race into it. Why? Drive a few hours south from the (gradually but painfully resurging) south side of Chicago to southern Illinois and you'll find predominantly white towns that have been similarly devastated by the rural economy and the decline of small-scale midwestern manufacturing jobs, and methamphetamine. Also: you're not a little concerned that the "book that changed your way of thinking" about urban decay was written by a guy that has a whole section on the ADL's website, who has written of a "Jewish takeover of American culture"?