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Zonie63 -> RE: Great Post on Detroit.... (8/2/2013 7:14:50 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RottenJohnny
This article is spot on.
If people really want to understand what happened in Detroit then consider the idea of "the perfect storm". The debt crisis didn't just start when the economy tanked. Detroit has been in a slow death spiral for decades. Between bad tax laws, a dwindling economy and tax base, the stranglehold unions have had in almost every aspect of governance, corrupt politicians, "backdoor" deals, and city employees and contractors abusing every opportunity to get paid for nothing, the city simply couldn't survive it.
The problem with Detroit isn't one or the other, it's "all of the above". Despite everything said by the author of the article, IMO the most important part was the final paragraph...
quote:
The last thing Detroit needs is a bailout. What it needs is to sweep away a city charter that protects only bureaucrats, civil-service rules that straightjacket municipal departments, and obsolete union contracts. A bailout would just keep the dysfunction in place. Time to start over.
I tend to agree. Just for perspective, I wanted to look over the list of largest cities in the USA by decade, and it's interesting to see how some cities have gone up and down in their prominence. Around 200 years ago, Salem MA and Albany NY were in the top ten, but now, they're relatively small cities by comparison.
Detroit could probably go the same way. Even if the city dies, the people won't die; they'll just move elsewhere and find better places. The city will shrink. The unused land could be made into farmland.
Either that, or the whole city can be walled off and turned into a giant prison, just like Escape From New York.
Detroit is not the only city this is happening to. There are smaller cities and towns in dire straits all across the country. Driving through some places, I see the sad, deteriorating remnants of what once was. It makes me think that this country's better days are long gone.
Even my own city is rife with corruption and mismanagement, and over the past few years, it feels like the whole place is falling apart.
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