3 ms·

> rebuilding a city takes time. How much time? Detroit began its decline in the late 1960's, and the current financial crisis started in earnest in ~2004 when

by pyre 13y ago

> rebuilding a city takes time. How much time? Detroit began its decline in the late 1960's, and the current financial crisis started in earnest in ~2004 when they lost a bunch of Federal funding[1]. The Tigers abandoned Tiger stadium (which was demolished in 2009, and the land remains undeveloped) and the Lions abandoned the Pontiac Silverdome in 2000 for the Comerica Park / Ford Field as part of the push to "revitalize" downtown Detroit. The Casinos were brought in because it would bring people downtown, and to generate tourism. To this day there are multi-level abandoned buildings just down the street from the Comerica Park / Ford Field complex[2][3]. Sorry, "it takes time" is a hollow answer in my book. If people really were working to turn the city around, that might hold some weight, but there are a lot of people looking to mooch off of it on the way down, while the suburbanites migrate further and further from Detroit-proper. [1] The population fell below 1 million in the 2004 US Census. For comparison, the population of Detroit was around 2 million at its height. [2] http://goo.gl/maps/oMzfZ http://goo.gl/maps/oMzfZ [3] http://goo.gl/maps/n7MIm http://goo.gl/maps/n7MIm

zenocon 13y ago
i guess i take issue with these hollow ruin porn, zombie tourist trips, and your commentary is equally hollow: > If people really were working to turn the city around... people are working to turn the city around. people are migrating to the city to fix it and making progress -- but, i guess you may have missed that looking up stats on wikipedia and census.gov and google maps. the people of detroit are aware of the history of detroit.
thesagan 13y ago
Rebuilding a city, on this scale, takes a LOT of time. Maybe our lifetimes, or two. It took a lifetime to grow Detroit from a small city to a big one. But this time, the game may be much more complicated. Although my evidence is only anecdotal, I can see with my own eyes when I'm in and around Detroit (I live about an hour west) that people are working incredibly hard to turn the city around. But the statistics may not show this at first glance, and it could take many years for all of this hard work to even register on the national radar. If we're here looking for simple answers, the only simple answer would be to let Detroit continue declining, and forget about it and deal with the blowback, whatever it may be, for however long it may last. Every other answer is hard.

by pyre 13y ago

zenocon 13y ago

i guess i take issue with these hollow ruin porn, zombie tourist trips, and your commentary is equally hollow: > If people really were working to turn the city around... people are working to turn the city around. people are migrating to the city to fix it and making progress -- but, i guess you may have missed that looking up stats on wikipedia and census.gov and google maps. the people of detroit are aware of the history of detroit.

thesagan 13y ago

Rebuilding a city, on this scale, takes a LOT of time. Maybe our lifetimes, or two. It took a lifetime to grow Detroit from a small city to a big one. But this time, the game may be much more complicated. Although my evidence is only anecdotal, I can see with my own eyes when I'm in and around Detroit (I live about an hour west) that people are working incredibly hard to turn the city around. But the statistics may not show this at first glance, and it could take many years for all of this hard work to even register on the national radar. If we're here looking for simple answers, the only simple answer would be to let Detroit continue declining, and forget about it and deal with the blowback, whatever it may be, for however long it may last. Every other answer is hard.