Why is Detroit shrinking?

[Mikeg]

.......if the city of Detroit had strong annexation powers -- where there was less of a financial incentive for outer municipalities to urbanize -- Metro Detroit's development zone probably would not have extended too far past 14 Mile Rd going north and Middlebelt Rd going west. There was simply no incentive at the regional level to build out that far without the complementing regional economic expansion that has been absent for the past half century.

Those very same annexation powers enabled Detroit to expand unfettered until the Great Depression strangled its "growth machine", yet they weren't strong enough?

During the first third of the 20th Century, the City of Detroit through its annexations and the Detroit Board of Water Commissioner's liberal policy of water and sewer expansion created a situation such that when new residential construction in Detroit finally took off again shortly after the WWII rationing of building materials was lifted, those new homes were tapping into water and sewer lines that had been installed back in the 1920s.

Furthermore, in reaction to that situation, beginning in 1938 and lasting until 1956, the Detroit Board of Water Commissioner's official policy was to not extend the reach of their system and to service only what they already had. This policy alone would have made it impossible for the City of Detroit to attempt further annexations since they needed to be able to provide those services that the existing suburban units of government could not provide.

By the time the DWSD reversed its policy and embarked on its massive water service expansion in the late 1950s, they were signing up suburban communities that in the interim had already installed and expanded their own water systems and were switching over to Detroit water strictly for cost and quality reasons.

[iheartthed]

Those very same annexation powers enabled Detroit to expand unfettered until the Great Depression strangled its "growth machine", yet they weren't strong enough?

Detroit's annexation powers were never that strong and never distinct to Detroit [[i.e. any Michigan municipality with city status had the same powers as Detroit). Detroit stopped annexing because 1) all of the townships surrounding it incorporated to block annexing and 2) the city also never made annexation a mandatory agreement to extend its utility services. But Detroit has never had powers like Toronto...