OT- Is Detroit really dying?
I read this article today and I was amazed at the numbers being put out. I C&P'd most of the article since it's not behind a paywall. I'd like to hear from people closer to the situation of these things are true, because as someone living far away it's amazing.
Please, no political rants...just facts and first-hand observations please.
Mod edit: Added the link and parsed down the summary to avoid plagarism. Free or not, copy & paste of full articles isn't the best policy. --ed.
Link to Article (HT: User PitchAndCatch)
The Wall Street Journal recently ran one of the most creative stories I have seen in years. The journalist told the story of the history of a 5-bedroom home in Detroit, from the land purchase to its recent sale. It was built by one of the most influential man you have never heard of, Clarence Avery. Avery was on the Ford Motor Company team that conceived of implementing an assembly line for Ford's factory. He copied the idea from a hog-slaughtering operation. His home was a very nice home for the time. The journalist located his daughter, now age 91. She said that she always thought the home was the best home she ever lived in. As recently as 2005, the home sold for $250,000. It was purchased by a woman who was lent $200,000 to buy it. It was financed by a subprime loan. The asking price was $189,000. Where the other $61,000 went, the woman has no idea. She defaulted. The deteriorating house was bought by a Christian organization that is renovating it. The house sold for $10,000. [...] This is the sign of a dying city. This does not happen in a normal environment. Even with the mania created by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in conjunction with Alan Greenspan's Federal Reserve, nothing like this has happened anywhere else.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:02 AM ^
I'm sure that the military contracts have value and the divisions of Chrysler that are involved in those contracts will survive, but they're not enough to keep the whole company going.
If I correctly understand what happened in bankruptcy last year, Cerberus took a complete bath on Chrysler, losing pretty much all of its investment and essentially giving the company away, in return for Fiat's promise to assume some (but hardly all) of Chrysler's debt.
If Chrysler doesn't start making profits in a couple of years, Fiat is going to have a fire sale. It will sell all the assets it can sell, including the divisions with the military contracts, and a few divisions or products that might be successful, like Jeep. Everything else will shut down and the US will be down to two domestic auto makers. Or maybe one.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:49 AM ^
The government owns the IP these types of contracts, if it wants a different company to produce something it can make it happen. In essence the contracts could basically be sold to another company to complete or fulfill the contracts.
March 24th, 2010 at 10:43 AM ^
I have been in ghost towns out west and down south, we even have them in the Keweenaw Peninsula up north. I have not been there, but I have been told Gary, Indiana is a modern day ghost town. I also hear that Flint is dying as well due to a lack of jobs. We just haven't seen it here in the US in a city as large as Detroit. Going back father in history, the city of Babylon and Tyre are both major cities from ancient times that were at some point completely abandoned and now how no one living where they used to sit. It happens.
If you spend anytime time in Detroit neighborhoods, you see whole blocks sometimes with one or two house, or even that have become all grass. Years ago, the used to have all these house fires, especially on Devils night. I guess if you burn down enough houses, vacant blocks is what you are left with.
March 24th, 2010 at 10:48 AM ^
Yeah, if you want to go back far enough, of course this has happened before. :)
Ur. First city in Mesopotamia. Read Gilgamesh for a good description of it. The river migrated and the city disappeared into the sand.
If you guys know anyone in Iraq that's at Camp Adder, they're very close to the Ur ruins.
March 24th, 2010 at 10:49 AM ^
I think that even though it appears Detroit the city is dying, there may be hope of the city reinventing itself. With such low housing prices and large swaths of vacant land, I've heard discussions about trying to start up some urban farms to provide residents with access to local, healthy foods. Combined with some of the neighborhoods that are in better shape, I think this will attract young people interested in owning a first home with easy access to the downtown attractions. Maybe this is a bit idealistic, but I'm hopeful that affordability will lead people to consider living downtown again. My only fear is that if some areas start to be redeveloped, the cost of new/renovated housing might exceed what is affordable to the current residents of Detroit and cause tension between people moving into the city (which is clearly good for the city) and those who stuck out the bad times. Sadly, I don't have any faith that the city could regulate renovation of the older buildings in a way that would ensure affordable housing for current residents.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:22 AM ^
My favorite attraction in Detroit is that huge vacant dilapidated apartment building that looks like its been abandoned and falling apart for years, but despite of this, there is still a large banner hung on the front of it that says "NOW RENTING - MOVE IN NOW" or something to that effect. The building looks the same as it did when it was featured in Roger and Me (1989).
+1 to whoever finds a picture. It cracks me up every time I see it.
March 24th, 2010 at 10:57 AM ^
Note the Ford sign in the background of the second picture:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/detroit-sold-for-scrap,1931/
They might have been premature on that call. :)
March 24th, 2010 at 11:02 AM ^
Steve in PA, what is the source?
I have worked in downtown Detroit since 2003. I have not seen a drastic difference in the past 7 years. It is a continuation of a process that began long ago See Thomas Sugrue's Origin of the Urban Crisis for a nice explanation that tracks the "flight" from Detroit.
As a professional urban planner that has worked for the City of Detroit Planning & Development Department and currently works for an organization focused on SE MI, I call into question many of the assertions in the piece you lifted. I urge everyone to ignore the statistics he provided unless he provides data sources.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/census-bureau-dallas-posts-biggest-po…
"Biggest losers:
Detroit, which was battered by the collapse of the auto industry and faces a 15.6% unemployment rate, lost more than 20,000 people in 2009, or 0.5% of its residents. "
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/27/worst-big-cities-jobs-opinions-columni…
Forbes has Detroit as the worst city for jobs (Farmington Hills/ Warren/ Troy was #8, BTW).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/business/economy/27home.html
NY Times:
"New York and Detroit, which both showed large monthly declines in March, show the different legacies of the boom. Prices in New York are still up 73.4 percent from January 2000, while those in Detroit are 29 percent lower. A Detroit house costs about the same today as it did 14 years ago."
March 24th, 2010 at 11:26 AM ^
You mean housing values haven't declined by 93% since 2003, as implied in OP article?
March 24th, 2010 at 11:36 AM ^
but the specific house the OP refers to may have. However, the average is probably far less.
March 24th, 2010 at 12:25 PM ^
It's unlikely that aggregate city-wide housing prices would decrease by 93% in under 7 years? (Which is in fact implied in OP article)
March 24th, 2010 at 11:30 AM ^
The numbers look even worse today. That Forbes list is from April of '09. According to this article from just a couple weeks back, the unemployment rate is at 30% with 33.8% of it's people living below the poverty line. The article is a good read, btw.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/10/detroit-motor-city-urban-dec…
Also, this is from The Guardian- a British paper. So the media coverage extends overseas. Everyone who's saying that what's happening in Detroit has happened plenty of times before are correct, but the scope of it is unprecedented.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:19 AM ^
OT question. What kind of qualifications and experience does it take to work for the city planning department and organizations like yours? I'm not casting aspersions; I genuinely want to know.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:40 AM ^
That article is typical of the schlock written about Detroit that attempts to alarm outsiders and even casual visitors to Detroit.
Personally, I've spent plenty of time in Detrit during the past decade and although there is much work to be done it is not all doom and gloom. Even with the populaton loss there's still upwards of 900,000 people in the city. Although many neighborhoods are hurting (State Fair, vast stretch of the East Side, for example) others are doing alright...the mexican neighborhood in southwest detroit for example, or Midtown, or even Downtown. My data is a few years old but, believe it or not, the Downtown core was one of the few parts of the city to exhibit population growth (albeit modest growth). More importantly, many of the new residents were young professionals with postgraduate degrees, a very desirable demographic.
The city continues to maintain a good art & music scene and with the potential for inexpensive real estate I suspect that this will continue to add vibrancy to the city. In some ways, Detroit reminds me of New York City's Chelsea distract about 13 years when I first visited it...a place that is now doing very well, maybe even too good.
There may not be many precedents in American history for the present status of Detroit but cities can recover. Rome, Italy (as an obvious example) had a population peak of approximately 1 million residents during the Roman empire, this shrank to about 100,000 after the empire fell but has since recovered to almost 3 million residents.
Cities are dynamic organisms and constantly changing. "Dying" is often a perception. I know many of you will think I'm crazy for saying this, but personally, I believe that Detroit will last longer than the United State of America. In fact, I'm tempted to argue that it is already the first post-American.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:10 AM ^
I took my girlfriend in college to downtown Detroit. I drove her through the ghetto and sidestreets and she got really scared and ducked down in her seat. I wanted her to get a feel for Detroit. She is from Tucson. Not a good combo.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:11 AM ^
Sadly, the only thing in that article I find hard to believe is that the median home price in Detroit was $98,000 in 2003. I can't believe it was even that high.
In fairness, though, it must be noted that the price of homes is dragged down by the huge number of abandoned homes that are auctioned for next to nothing. An actual occupied, maintained home will still fetch an okay (for Detroit) price.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:12 AM ^
But please stay out of the political discussions. We all have opinions on how and why things got to this point, but they don't belong on this site.
The only thing I've ever seen of this nature is the coal towns here in PA, but they are actually starting to come back since it's profitable to mine the coal here again. Not that they will ever be anything like they were before, but at least there's jobs instead of widespread dependence on subsistance checks.
Here's an example of one that was claimed by a fire in the coal seam. It's the place that my ancestors went when they first got off the boat.
Before & After: http://thewitcontinuum.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/7-centralia-pennsylv…
Thank goodness my great-great grandfather decided to buy a farm with his coal mine earnings and move out of there.
I also have an office in a town (Renovo, PA) that was built specifically to repair railroad cars. At one time they had 5000 employees in the rail yards. The town had theaters, movie houses, and all of the other luxuries of the early 1900's. We all know what has happened to the railroads and today it is only kept alive by those too old & stubborn to move and their offspring.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:15 AM ^
"basically empty" is not the same as not being used. do you like beef? do you like corn? do you like bread?"
I live in the SE, I'm well aware that the land is being used. But a lot of those small farms got turned into subdivisions over the last 20 years.
If you fly into LA, you fly over the series of fields where the bulk of the produce is grown (in a desert...using water diverted from the Colorado River).
BTW, it just hit me that when I calculated the land mass of the US, I left out Alaska...which is ~1/3 of the country's area. Alaska is mostly empty. If you've ever had to drive across Texas, it's mostly empty too. Aren't most of the cattle there in east Texas? The western part of the state was just highway, armadillo and the occassional refinery.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:18 AM ^
I grew up on the western edge of Wayne County (the county Detroit is in). Young at that point had been mayor for many years.
My parents and my friend's parents would not take us to the city, or go themselves, other than day trips that were rare, and directly to the art musuem or the science center, and out well before dark.
Everone knew a friend of a white friend who wanted drugs, went to Detroit, got murdered, and the case was never solved. Some years the clearence rate (someone arrested for a murder) in the city was under 20%.
Everyone, from the kids to the grandparents, 'knew' that Young and his whole government hated whites. Heck, he would tell you on TV or the radio.
Some white girls one year went down there for the fireworks show, and on tape a gang of black girls beat the hell out of them to steal their clothes. Young took the case away from the police, made himself lead investigator, and solved the case by announcing the whites called the black girls a name and started it.
Then there was the whole Malice Green things.
Young finally left, and Archer got in. Sure, he is a little racist, but not a lot, and he was pro-business. The black pastors ralled their flocks to denounce him at every turn, and to call for the destruction of any business Archer got to move into that city.
I had no shock at all the the current crop was so corrupt that the feds can't help but convict some, even by accident, conyers, Kilpatrick,just because the level of corruption is so huge and so open because no one cares anymore.
The city owns a campground up north that it bought in the 40s, and a church wants it? Sure, the property is worth a million. Pay city officals $200,00 in bribes and you can buy the property for $200,000. Just par for the course.
Meanwhile, the new police chief is acting all happy because he got the murder clearence rate over 50%. Of course, he did that by ignoring bodies dumped in drains and abandoned buildings.
It is a failed city, and will remain so as long as the population votes based on the race of the officials.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:29 AM ^
She was a freshman at UD (before it was UDM)in the late 60s when the riots were happening. She told me how anti-white the city was (including CY). I am still amazed. Imagine if a city like Detroit was anti-black?! That's probably a tagent we don't want to go down...
March 24th, 2010 at 11:18 AM ^
Coleman Young Kwame Kilpatrick: Those two can fill you in on why Detroit looks the way it is
March 24th, 2010 at 11:23 AM ^
Detroit will be reinvented as no major urban area has been in the coming decades. Creative minds are developing innovative plans for land use, sustainable living, and regional cooperation. It may be bleak right now, but the future is exciting.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:28 AM ^
This is how I see it as well. There aren't many other places in the country, if any, that would be willing to take the chances that Detroit will welcome right now. It has the opportunity to be a sandbox environment for all kinds of exciting and innovative ideas for urban development, etc. Hopefully the right people are put in place to make it a success that helps not only Detroit, but other areas of the country as well.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:32 AM ^
...while great, will not go very far with the current mindset of the Detroit political bodies. Detroit needs to embrace a more multi-cultural approach to politics.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:34 AM ^
The former steel town that was dying in the 70's has rebuilt itself and is now a thriving modern city. I read somewhere that the under 35 population has exploded with jobs in IT and biotech. It can happen.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:25 AM ^
As someone that just purchased a condo in Midtown, let me offer a simple rebuttal. Don't mind my curtness:
This article is crap.
It conveniently ignores the $42 million greenscaping project occurring in Midtown, the $800 million purchase of the DMC by Vanguard, the movement of Quicken Loans and its 1,700 professionals to downtown Detroit, Mayor Bing's ability to (sorta) balance fiscal spending in his first ten months in office, the all-but-guaranteed appreciation of home prices in the Midtown and Eastern Market areas, the right-sizing project (despite its controversy), Illitch's (farther along than you realize) plan to build a downtown stadium for the Pistons and Red Wings, the M-1 light rail project...
Take a walk around Corktown and Midtown if you have the chance. You have a new influx of community-minded professionals looking to restore -- not gentrify -- some of the neighborhoods in the city. It's not going to happen overnight -- but for a city that is on life support, signs are positive. Trust me on this one.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:31 AM ^
Are you saying that Quicken has moved its HQ to Detroit? That's pretty awesome, if so.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:37 AM ^
I have a friend that works for Quicken Loans, and he said that Jason Gingell works there. Quicken is evidently known for tough interviews, and supposedly during Gingell's interview they played a YouTube clip of his missed field goal in the App St. game on a loop behind the interviewer.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:39 AM ^
If true, that's just evil
March 24th, 2010 at 11:54 AM ^
I'd go MSU on the interviewer (beat the defenseless nerd) and then storm out.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:38 AM ^
The move was announced in 2007. Dan Gilbert (the CEO), from my understanding, is really adamant about leveraging his company's move to revitalizing the downtown area.
http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/DEGCnov07.aspx
March 24th, 2010 at 11:49 AM ^
Are you saying that Quicken has moved its HQ to Detroit? That's pretty awesome, if so.Fathead, as well. Gilbert bought that. Support Detroit and Michigan - buy a Fathead!
March 24th, 2010 at 11:39 AM ^
and in the D. I hope it, as well as the rest of the decaying cities in the US improve in the next decade, but facts like this are hard to ignore:
From a Guardian (UK) article posted below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/10/detroit-motor-city-urban-dec…
"One in five houses now stand empty. Property prices have fallen 80% or more in Detroit over the last three years. A three-bedroom house on Albany Street is still on the market for $1.
Unemployment has reached 30%; 33.8% of Detroit's population and 48.5% of its children live below the poverty line. Forty-seven per cent of adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate; 29 Detroit schools closed in 2009 alone."
March 24th, 2010 at 11:45 AM ^
There's article upon article about how much Detroit is in disrepair -- and it's impossible to ignore the facts. But I always take these data with a grain of salt, because they offer incessant statistics on how shitty of a town the D is without providing any tangible suggestions on how to resolve these situations.
As an MBA/MPP student, I guess I've become jaded by information that conveniently ignores the prospect for reform -- all it does is provide a frowny face to those with no vested interest in finding solutions to these problems.
March 24th, 2010 at 12:15 PM ^
Lots of data to feed 'sky is falling' rants, some actual problems, but plenty in the works to make things way better. With patience and hard work, the once-invincible institution can regain legendary status.
As usual, those looking to be pessimistic will find reasons to be pessimistic. Those looking to make a positive change will find ways to make a positive change.
March 24th, 2010 at 12:15 PM ^
How about something positive about Detroit instead? They were listed as the city with the 15th most Most Energy Star Buildings in 2009 (via Infrastructurist):
- Total Energy Star buildings in 2009: 62
- Total square feet of increased efficiency: 12.9 million
- Money saved: $12.3 million
- Emissions reduction equivalent: 12,500 homes
March 24th, 2010 at 12:30 PM ^
Brian linked yesterday to an article on the closure of Southwestern High School next year, and the huge change in Detroit. More of the same.
Have enjoyed reading many of the comments, and feel the angst of those of you who are Michigan and especially Detroit area natives.
I actually think there is some hope for Detroit, and agree that because of the utter devastation and huge problems, there may be more creative solutions than would typically be allowed.
It has to involve significant pain, however, and no one likes pain. Among other things,
1) I think tax incentives and a radically different government must be in place.
2) The culture has to change. I don't begin to know how to deal with gangs and drugs and race, but order must come from within . . . it can't only be imposed by the government.
3) There must be huge diversification in the economy. The economy cannot only be service based . . . there must be some kind of manufacturing base.
4) Something in the union culture must change. I am not a union expert, but the sense of entitlement in the UAW base in particular must be jettisoned. Trade unions, I am less sure it is as great as a problem.
5) Wage structures must change.
There are a few significant advantages to be had in Michigan. One is the large source of fresh water for industrial use. Another is the transportation grid, including the Great Lakes, rail and roads.
If industry can come in, with tax incentives, with a motivated work force at a reasonable wage level, significant positive change can happen. I'm hoping that's what the future holds. It truly is sad to see what has happened in Detroit. As mentioned by many posters, this isn't unique . . . it just is that Detroit, and maybe Cleveland, are the largest cities to implode in this way.
March 24th, 2010 at 12:32 PM ^
Just saw this and wanted to share it as another positive story on downtown Detroit. Campus Martius Park is one of six finalists in a competition sponsored by the Urban Land Institute that recognizes how public open space can be a catalyst for adjacent development.
ULI Urban Open Space Competition
as to what you all think of Mayor Bing. Before I found out that it was written by He Who Shall Not Be Named and subsequently hated myself for it, I read the SI article about him. I can't make a qualified statement about his policies, but he seems like a great guy who is truly dedicated to Detroit and has the credentials and, more importantly, brains/know-how needed to get the job done. Reminds me a little of Corey Booker, if not for the past as a standout athlete.
Come to think of it, we need more former pros/former college standouts to step up. Jon Runyan could be next up. I'm looking to Myron Rolle retiring from the NFL and Tiki Barber leaving the Today Show (but also because NBC sucks and I don't want him to be ruined by any association with drunken midgets dressed as Ewoks).
The WSJ has lost an enormous amount of credibility since it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch.
Venture capitalists are buying up undervalued property in Detroit like it's candy. This is not death, simply a phase in a cycle. There is enormous opportunity there that will benefit those rich enough to acquire properties and businesses without relying on credit.
"Creative destruction" is one of the most useful effects of the free market. We are seeing that at work, here -- it pulls at our heart-strings but will end up yielding greater value over the long term than if we indefinitely try to prop up a decrepit city.
I live out west and when I tell people I'm from MI all they think of is Detroit and Flint and, to a lesser extent, the Lions. They've forgotten about the lakes, the U.P. and all the other great things the state has to offer. Many state that they would never vacation in MI, much less consider taking a job anywhere in the state. It's sad but Detroit and Flint have brought the entire state down with them. Let's hope they get things back on track soon.
Is Detroit really dying?Short answer: Yes Long answer: Yes, definitely The city needs a lot of work. Some answers come in revitalizing the auto industry, others come in the citizens becoming capable of electing a council that doesn't shit the bed every time an opportunity to take a step in the right direction presents itself.
The city of Detroit has passed critical mass and it's never coming back. A city can survive down times if it still has some acheivers, but the city has been down for so long that just about everyone who is educated, can make good voting decisions, and/or pay enough taxes to keep the city in good shape has moved out. The Detroit city council is drek of the worst kind.
The rest of Michigan is dangerously close to that critical mass. Lots and lots of brain drain gone on in the past 50 years, but especially the past five or six. Along with them goes all the tax dollars that fund state programs. Next to go is the education system. The downward spiral continues and before you know it, you've got another Mississippi.
That's why the Mr Bing is attempting to consolidate the city into something much smaller. I was listening to NPR's Economy Podcast the other day, and the number of school-age children in the city has dropped (can't remember exactly) by something like 40% in the last 15 years! That means that the rest of the working age population is also probably decreasing significantly as well.
Frankly, Detroit probably needs a new industry to keep people in the city, it needs to seriously consolidate itself to reduce the amount of services it has to provide (fewer schools, fewer neighborhoods for police to patrol, etc), and it needs something besides sports stadiums to bring consumers into the city. Unfortunately, those are really difficult things to do, and many are very unpopular politically.