Why shouldn't Detroiters blame others for the city's problems?

[Hermod]

A lot of the debt Detroit has today is because it took on bond debt in the past for such expensive projects as demolishing Poletown so GM could build a factory. And, as revenues kept dropping and expenses kept rising, the city has kept on using its bonding authority to prop up its budget, allowing it to offer tax abatements and subsidies to some of the richest developers in town. It's a serious problem, though nobody wants to talk about that because it doesn't fit the narrative of suburb-hating, white-hating Negro Marxists elected by a monolithically black poor voting block all failing because they stuck it to the capitalists and embraced leftist politics. If anything, Detroit's leaders have played Santa Claus to prominent capitalists for decades. That has been a major factor conducting to where we are now.

Sounds like the bonded indebtedness in your examples of give-aways and crony capitalism was engineered and approved by these guys [[suburb-hating, white-hating Negro Marxists elected by a monolithically black poor voting block), and not by Al Cobo.

[michimoby]

Lakeshore Drive? Kennedy Expressway?

Yes, Lakeshore Drive isn't technically an interstate, but it's a freeway. Limited access, no streetlights, six lanes of divided, high speed traffic with shoulders. It completely separates the city from the lake, with limited pedestrian tunnels under the freeway.

And the Kennedy, which is huge, slices right through downtown.

It's well-documented that Daley and prominent Chicago business owners lobbied to have the freeways built between the historically African-American neighborhoods and the Loop, which was just coming into its own as a commercial and financial center. A glance at Chicago's neighborhood distribution pre-1960 confirms this.

The same happened in Detroit, albeit with a different philosophy -- some of the stalwart black neighborhoods were dissected by I-75 and 375.

However, the difference between the two is this: at that point, Chicago's economy was diversified enough that the effective "cutting off" of the black working class from the city center wasn't detrimental to the economic engine. Yes, it a horrifying policy and further pushed the working class away from the city center.

On the contrary, the freeways in Detroit empowered the upper-middle class to further set up their homes outside the city because they had more convenient access downtown; the freeways also served the dual role of community deconstruction as mentioned before.

So, yes, it's complex, but the two scenarios aren't exactly aligned.

[[FYI, most of the sourcing for this info comes from the books American Pharaoh and Sugrue's Origins of the Urban Crisis)

[DetroitPlanner]

Zug, consider that Detroit is also an industrial city that needs to move not only traffic around inside is, but through it on its way to other Markets in the US, Canada, and Mexico. If we did not have those ditches, we would have lots of 18 wheelers plowing the streets.

Detroit is not that unusual of a City in terms of freeways. Take a look at places like Minneapolis or Los Angeles and you will see that there systems are a lot worse. We have two interstates [[I-75 and I-94) and one intra-state [[I-96). That is fairly typical for a large city.

[Detroitnerd]

Sounds like the bonded indebtedness in your examples of give-aways and crony capitalism was engineered and approved by these guys [[suburb-hating, white-hating Negro Marxists elected by a monolithically black poor voting block), and not by Al Cobo.

First of all, what you bold is a construct I think exists mostly in the fevered imagination of a lot of city-hating, black-loathing Caucasian proto-fascists.

But even Coleman Young, a former CPer, worked closely with the auto company bosses after his second term. Didn't he bend over backward to give GM what it wanted? Demolish a whole neighborhood to do it? Indebt the city deeply to pay for it?

I don't get it. Seems that, administration after administration, Detroit mayors are willing to go ever deeper into debt to lay the groundwork for "big plans." Like Archer paying to bulldoze the riverfront for the casinos, etc. etc.

And, despite all the complaints about a heavily Africanized, white-hating Detroit City Council, I gotta say, they seem to be doing what every municipal legislative body should do: try to drive a good bargain for the city. But time and again they submit to pressure, mostly from the media and the power establishment, and do the expedient thing. They gave Hantz what he wanted, over the objection of many smart observers, for instance. Then others complain that they didn't sign on Belle Isle. But why should they if they didn't like the deal?

For all the invective heaped on City Council, they weren't doing anything much different from, say, Troy's government, when it kept balking Sam Frankel's expansion plans for Somerset for, oh, something like 20 YEARS. Sometimes governments don't feel a deal is good enough, but it seems that only in the case of Detroit is it called malicious foot-dragging.

[Zug]

I should have never made any direct comparisons with other cities, because some can't see the forest for the trees. I wasn't trying to debate Chicago's freeway layout [[btw, the Kennedy/Ryan Expressway in Chicago runs west of downtown...not right through it)...but it is certainly different than Detroit. I am saying that it is easier to preserve your city center when you don't have freeways criss-crossing through it or completely encircling it. I'm not pulling this stuff out of my ass...it is based on the long established theory that freeways destroy urban cores by reducing foot traffic, making areas physically less attractive, and taking up real estate. This theory is the underpinning of some successful urban renewal/intensification projects that called for the removal of freeways. They did it in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Milwaukee...and there are plans for freeway removals in Cleveland and Nashville.

Freeways serve a purpose, but their creation destabilized communities. So, yes, Detroit's freeway layout, along with other factors, made it easier to abandon Detroit.

[Honky Tonk]

I should have never made any direct comparisons with other cities, because some can't see the forest for the trees. I wasn't trying to debate Chicago's freeway layout [[btw, the Kennedy/Ryan Expressway in Chicago runs west of downtown...not right through it)...but it is certainly different than Detroit. I am saying that it is easier to preserve your city center when you don't have freeways criss-crossing through it or completely encircling it. I'm not pulling this stuff out of my ass...it is based on the long established theory that freeways destroy urban cores by reducing foot traffic, making areas physically less attractive, and taking up real estate. This theory is the underpinning of some successful urban renewal/intensification projects that called for the removal of freeways. They did it in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Milwaukee...and there are plans for freeway removals in Cleveland and Nashville.

Freeways serve a purpose, but their creation destabilized communities. So, yes, Detroit's freeway layout, along with other factors, made it easier to abandon Detroit.

That and the fact GM dropped the Hamtown plant right in the middle of a neighborhood. Residents I've talked to from that era tell me the division is what what killed that neighborhood.

[313hero]

The problem I have with the freeway excuse is they are everywhere. Literally. Every major city in the continental United States of America has freeways. There isn't a single city I cannot access vio freeway, yet Detroit is the only city that let it destroy the city and continues to blame the freeways. It also boggles my mind that if Detroit was such a desirable to place to live, why would they use the freeways to leave?

The thing that you may have missed is that the freeways destroyed the black community. Black bottom was where 75 was ran through, destroying a strong Black community with housing businesses etc. All those people were displaced and many was never able to bounce back. Same thing goes for other cities as well. Think or ask about what was there b4 the freeways and you'll see why a lot of people point fingers at freeways. White people probably won't because it helped them it hurt us

[Wesley Mouch]

First of all, what you bold is a construct I think exists mostly in the fevered imagination of a lot of city-hating, black-loathing Caucasian proto-fascists.

But even Coleman Young, a former CPer, worked closely with the auto company bosses after his second term. Didn't he bend over backward to give GM what it wanted? Demolish a whole neighborhood to do it? Indebt the city deeply to pay for it?

I don't get it. Seems that, administration after administration, Detroit mayors are willing to go ever deeper into debt to lay the groundwork for "big plans." Like Archer paying to bulldoze the riverfront for the casinos, etc. etc....snip...

I with you against these 'big plans', but your desire to hate capitalists has led you to an incorrection conclusion.

GM did not want to build the Poletown plant. They were closing Fleetwood, and said they were leaving because they needed to built their new plant on rural land. The new plant had to be a clone of Lake Orion Assembly and others that was their standardized design of the time. They made the mistake of telling CAY that they'd be happy to build in Detroit, but there's just no land like they need.

CAY got them to agree to build if he could deliver the land. He did. And they lived up to their commitment But it was 100% not GM's idea or to their benefit. Communist CAY snookered GM. In some ways, I really like that guy.

[Detroitnerd]

I with you against these 'big plans', but your desire to hate capitalists has led you to an incorrection conclusion.

GM did not want to build the Poletown plant. They were closing Fleetwood, and said they were leaving because they needed to built their new plant on rural land. The new plant had to be a clone of Lake Orion Assembly and others that was their standardized design of the time. They made the mistake of telling CAY that they'd be happy to build in Detroit, but there's just no land like they need.

CAY got them to agree to build if he could deliver the land. He did. And they lived up to their commitment But it was 100% not GM's idea or to their benefit. Communist CAY snookered GM. In some ways, I really like that guy.

That's a very clever way of dodging corporate responsibility. That's right: The most controversial mayor of Detroit in recent history, a communist, somehow forced the most powerful corporation in the world to do something it didn't want to do. All those photos of GM and Young shaking hands? What awesome power CAY must have had ...

[Drexciya68]

http://www.daahp.wayne.edu/1900_1949.html

When will more start doing positive things in Detroit? Too many people bitching and moaning for decades and not enough doing. Detroit needs a wake up call and it's getting it now. It's like it's a city of crying and whining children some times. All mouth.. little action.

[TexasT]

http://www.daahp.wayne.edu/1900_1949.html

When will more start doing positive things in Detroit? Too many people bitching and moaning for decades and not enough doing. Detroit needs a wake up call and it's getting it now. It's like it's a city of crying and whining children some times. All mouth.. little action.

I just went to a Detroit Young Professionals meeting with Snyder and Orr - one of Snyder's overarching themes was "MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD." The younger crowd is pretty bad about that [[see the Belle Isle issue).

Snyder was talking about people only complaining and not offering any suggestions for change. He asked when was the last time we heard people standing up and giving positive suggestions - it was a rhetorical question but a guy in the front yelled out "Last week with Kevyn Orr!" Just an interesting difference between that group and the older Detroiters.

[mwilbert]

That's a very clever way of dodging corporate responsibility. That's right: The most controversial mayor of Detroit in recent history, a communist, somehow forced the most powerful corporation in the world to do something it didn't want to do. All those photos of GM and Young shaking hands? What awesome power CAY must have had ...

CAY didn't force them into it; he shamed and bribed them into it. There was huge opposition, which he ignored. Why? Because he wanted the tax revenue, and the only way to get the plant was to clear a huge plot of land that happened to be on a major rail line. And, knowing CAY, probably enjoyed the idea of displacing some white residents. If he hadn't done it, people [[different people, probably) would have complained about GM disinvesting from the city. But it's clear that GM would have been perfectly happy never to have heard of Poletown, and to claim otherwise is ahistorical.

[Detroitnerd]

Snyder was talking about people only complaining and not offering any suggestions for change. He asked when was the last time we heard people standing up and giving positive suggestions.

When problems are insoluble, critics can rightfully point out that the situation is all effed up from top to bottom and maybe the system that created it and tolerates it is rotten to the core.

And then we often hear the clarion call of the Cult of Hope: "The fellow condemns without offering anything better. Why tear down without building up?"

Well, because sometimes the realities are so grim and the problem itself so impossible to resolve that anybody speaking uplift should probably be heckled, if not tarred, feathers and run out of town on a rail.

There's not enough money coming in to fund a city and bond obligations and pension obligations. There's probably only enough money to pay the bondholders and fuck all else. I don't see any solution in there; do you? No, it's a huge problem that was created by all of the powerful people in the state of Michigan making shitty, short-term political judgments, with outstate forces chortling that a Day of Reckoning would come and local cretins whistling past the graveyard night after night.

It's our pile of crap. Why sprinkle sugar on it or tie it in a scarlet ribbon? Who is really fooled by this uplift?

"The trouble with [an honest critic] is that he tells the truth, which is the unsafest of all things to tell. His crime is that he is a man who prefers facts to illusions, and knows what he is talking about. Such men are never popular. The public taste is for merchandise of a precisely opposite character. The way to please is to proclaim in a confident manner, not what is true, but what is merely comforting. This is what is called building up. This is constructive criticism." --H.L. Mencken

[Detroitnerd]

CAY didn't force them into it; he shamed and bribed them into it. There was huge opposition, which he ignored. Why? Because he wanted the tax revenue, and the only way to get the plant was to clear a huge plot of land that happened to be on a major rail line. And, knowing CAY, probably enjoyed the idea of displacing some white residents. If he hadn't done it, people [[different people, probably) would have complained about GM disinvesting from the city. But it's clear that GM would have been perfectly happy never to have heard of Poletown, and to claim otherwise is ahistorical.

If that's so, then why did Justice Ryan see it precisely the opposite way in his dissent in the court case Poletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit? Why did James L. Ryan essentially write that GM made a power move to extract what they wanted from the city by threat of moving their plant to another state?

[TexasT]

When problems are insoluble, critics can rightfully point out that the situation is all effed up from top to bottom and maybe the system that created it and tolerates it is rotten to the core.

And then we often hear the clarion call of the Cult of Hope: "The fellow condemns without offering anything better. Why tear down without building up?"

Well, because sometimes the realities are so grim and the problem itself so impossible to resolve that anybody speaking uplift should probably be heckled, if not tarred, feathers and run out of town on a rail.

There's not enough money coming in to fund a city and bond obligations and pension obligations. There's probably only enough money to pay the bondholders and fuck all else. I don't see any solution in there; do you? No, it's a huge problem that was created by all of the powerful people in the state of Michigan making shitty, short-term political judgments, with outstate forces chortling that a Day of Reckoning would come and local cretins whistling past the graveyard night after night.

It's our pile of crap. Why sprinkle sugar on it or tie it in a scarlet ribbon? Who is really fooled by this uplift?

"The trouble with [an honest critic] is that he tells the truth, which is the unsafest of all things to tell. His crime is that he is a man who prefers facts to illusions, and knows what he is talking about. Such men are never popular. The public taste is for merchandise of a precisely opposite character. The way to please is to proclaim in a confident manner, not what is true, but what is merely comforting. This is what is called building up. This is constructive criticism." --H.L. Mencken

Meh, something's got to give. A simple "It's too fucked to fix" isn't going to work - and no, I do not believe it's too big of a problem to solve. It's not about sprinkling sugar on the pile of crap, it's about scraping the pile of crap off the city. All I've mostly seen is people complaining about the fact that the pile of crap exists and freaking out on anyone that tries to do anything about it.

Well, that's what I see from the older folks. I don't see that around the 35-and-under crowd. We have the luxury of not having the historical baggage.

[mwilbert]

If that's so, then why did Justice Ryan see it precisely the opposite way in his dissent in the court case Poletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit? Why did James L. Ryan essentially write that GM made a power move to extract what they wanted from the city by threat of moving their plant to another state?

I don't agree with this interpretation of the dissent. Detroit could [[and in my view, did) feel pressure to do the taking without GM being particularly interested in it being done. The motivations were completely asymmetric--Detroit, or at least CAY, wanted the plant, GM didn't care that much where they put it.

[mwilbert]

I agree with TexasT that this way of thinking is at best unproductive, and in its own way, completely unrealistic. It isn't as if the status quo is stable, so something is going to happen.

There's probably only enough money to pay the bondholders and fuck all else.

Where did you get that idea? The city certainly is underfunded, but it isn't that underfunded.

[maverick1]

Meh, something's got to give. A simple "It's too fucked to fix" isn't going to work - and no, I do not believe it's too big of a problem to solve. It's not about sprinkling sugar on the pile of crap, it's about scraping the pile of crap off the city. All I've mostly seen is people complaining about the fact that the pile of crap exists and freaking out on anyone that tries to do anything about it.

Well, that's what I see from the older folks. I don't see that around the 35-and-under crowd. We have the luxury of not having the historical baggage.

We don't have that baggage and we want solutions but we seemed to be bogged down as a region by older people stuck in an era. We want the things in Detroit that our friends leave Detroit for. I get the feeling some folks are happy with the status quo as long as one side never wins in their eyes. In the meantime Southeast Michigan is dying and a big joke nationally. What really hurts is that we have the bones to come back to relevance if we can get out our own way.

[Wesley Mouch]

...snip...
But even Coleman Young, a former CPer, worked closely with the auto company bosses after his second term. Didn't he bend over backward to give GM what it wanted? Demolish a whole neighborhood to do it? Indebt the city deeply to pay for it?..snip...

Before I forget, I think its important to say that this was a great investment -- at least it seems to me without any deep knowledge or analysis.

Poletown wasn't heaven on earth. Sure, CAY took out a big neighborhood. I always thought he went too far. Stretched too many rules. But looking back at this, look what we got. A real, functioning auto plant in the Detroit city limits. Makes real cars. Chevy Volts and others. Employs real people at good wages.

Compare this with almost every other government project on earth. I give CAY an A+ for this.