Why do so many houses end up abandoned?

[Canadian Visitor]

Yes, the mess in Detroit is due to several reasons: .

I appreciate that Detroit faces a number of challenges; but I'm not starting any thread, as a guest and visitor just to invite un-ending criticism of its present or past [[that would be rather rude!)

I understand many of the broad challenges; and dealt w/the amalgamation question in a different thread.

Like amalgamation this is one of those that I just don't fully get. Some dubious mortgages, check, some tough economic challenges, check. Got it.

But if I were to look at Windsor, ON for instance, which had among the highest rates of unemployment in the province in recent years, peaking at over 10%, you don't see anything comparable[[on a smaller scale); and I don't remember seeing it elsewhere in Canada. [[Home abandonment)

I would, of course, accept that there is also no comparable devaluation of property that I'm aware of; still, it boggles the mind a bit.

Of course it also boggles the mind that a typical middle-class resident of Ontario could probably pay cash for home or five in Detroit; and yet redevelopment seems to have been largely absent outside of downtown and midtown.

[davewindsor]

But if I were to look at Windsor, ON for instance, which had among the highest rates of unemployment in the province in recent years, peaking at over 10%, you don't see anything comparable[[on a smaller scale); and I don't remember seeing it elsewhere in Canada. [[Home abandonment)

I would, of course, accept that there is also no comparable devaluation of property that I'm aware of; still, it boggles the mind a bit.

Of course it also boggles the mind that a typical middle-class resident of Ontario could probably pay cash for home or five in Detroit; and yet redevelopment seems to have been largely absent outside of downtown and midtown.

It hasn't been at 10% in Windsor for a while.

The unemployment rate in Windsor is 6.9% as of January 2014, which is below the national average of 7.2% and several other large cities in Ontario. http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2014/02...t-in-a-decade/

In Toronto, the unemployment rate was 8.9% as of December 2013 and there's another report saying it's 10.1%. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01...n_4601849.html

Here's an article from 2010 that says according to Detroit News Detroit's unemployment rate in 2010 was 50% http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/1..._n_394559.html

And it's still somewhere around 17.7% in Detroit, which is over two and a half times that of Windsor. Plus there's an ongoing exodus of people from the reasons I cited above. Thus, you have your reasons for the massive housing devaluation and abandonment in Detroit vs. Windsor.

[EastsideAl]

I appreciate that Detroit faces a number of challenges; but I'm not starting any thread, as a guest and visitor just to invite un-ending criticism of its present or past [[that would be rather rude!)

I understand many of the broad challenges; and dealt w/the amalgamation question in a different thread.

Like amalgamation this is one of those that I just don't fully get. Some dubious mortgages, check, some tough economic challenges, check. Got it.

But if I were to look at Windsor, ON for instance, which had among the highest rates of unemployment in the province in recent years, peaking at over 10%, you don't see anything comparable[[on a smaller scale); and I don't remember seeing it elsewhere in Canada. [[Home abandonment)

I would, of course, accept that there is also no comparable devaluation of property that I'm aware of; still, it boggles the mind a bit.

Of course it also boggles the mind that a typical middle-class resident of Ontario could probably pay cash for home or five in Detroit; and yet redevelopment seems to have been largely absent outside of downtown and midtown.

Detroit may be the largest and most glaring case, garnering the most media attention, but it is hardly alone in suffering mass population loss and abandonment. Many other midwestern industrial cities have suffered nearly as badly or worse from the deindustrialization and suburbanization waves that have been breaking since at least the early '60s. A few cities, like Youngstown OH, suffered an even greater percentage population loss over this period than Detroit. And many cities all over the U.S. [[including for some time NYC) have suffered from significant abandonment of homes, apartment buildings, and businesses starting in the 1970s. In recent years though, the foreclosure crisis and persistent unemployment, along with some degree of racial difficulty, have exacerbated it in this part of the country.