Is Detroit the near future of America?

[Guest]

There is an Urban crisis in Detroit..

http://statter911.com/2012/01/04/must-see-video-detroit-ambulance-breaks-down-in-the-middle-of-new-years-gunfire/

Detroit just announced they are closing their police stations 16 hours a day to the public.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45875696/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

I would love to hear from anyone from Detroit to give a local voice to this crisis. I have read that large neighborhoods in Detroit are now abandoned.
It is happening to a city near you.
JJ

[Guest]

I did read an article about a year ago in WSJ. It featured the problems Pharmacies were having in the city. That their store were virtual bunkers because drug addicts robbed them so much. So they only dispensed drugs through small openings. It has gotten so bd that the addicts were drilling through the wallsand roofs to get to the supply of drugs

[Guest]

Ahhh Detroit; a bastion of liberal thought and Democrat machine politics. Was any other outcome expected?

[Guest]

Detroit is a poster city for INSANITY...they kept voting the same party in over and over, hoping for something to change.

[Guest]

Detroit; a bastion of liberal thought and Democrat machine politics. Was any other outcome expected?

Let's look at Washington, DC as another example. You cannot find a better Democrat machine or more liberal thought. There are some areas of Washington that are slum but more and more of the city is being renovated. Urban living in DC is becoming chic. Prices on old delapidated row houses have skyrocketed and "hipsters" (I think that is the term) have moved in - lots with their same-sex partners. The former city residents have now taken to the 'burbs while their old neighborhoods are the "in" places for night life such as Penn Quarter.

[Guest]

Detroit; a bastion of liberal thought and Democrat machine politics. Was any other outcome expected?

Let's look at Washington, DC as another example. You cannot find a better Democrat machine or more liberal thought. There are some areas of Washington that are slum but more and more of the city is being renovated. Urban living in DC is becoming chic. Prices on old delapidated row houses have skyrocketed and "hipsters" (I think that is the term) have moved in - lots with their same-sex partners. The former city residents have now taken to the 'burbs while their old neighborhoods are the "in" places for night life such as Penn Quarter.

I've driven through Washington. You can keep it. I wouldn't live there on a bet.

[Guest]

I think there are several factors involved to give you a "Detroit scenario".

- You have to be overly dependent on one industry.
- That industry has to have a collapse.
- You have to have incompetent leadership over a long period of time.
- That leadership has to get to the criminal level (even casual public sector incompetence will still allow for private sector success).
- You have to have a collapse of the local educational system so that there's no intellectual capital to get new ideas.
- You have to have relative success stories elsewhere to siphon off those people who might otherwise be part of a local renaissance.

Detroit hits all of these.