Detroit: Boston Mayor Says He'd "blow up the place and start all over"

Strange choice of words from a mayor of a city that just went through the trauma of the Marathon bombers... Of course he is backing off now that he has been called out on it. At least he gave our lame-duck mayor a chance for a last hurrah defense of the D.

The remark was made in the New York Times magazine last week.

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What would you do in Detroit?
I’d blow up the place and start all over. No, seriously, when it takes a police officer 90 minutes to answer a call, there’s something wrong with the system. Forty percent of the streetlights are out, most of the buildings are boarded up. Why? Inaction, that’s the problem — leadership.

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Article on the flap here.

How ignorant that Boston Mayor to our city. Bashing Detroit is common trend to rest of America. When people think of Detroit they would say, it's fill with too many black folks with no hope and dreams. It's bankrupt! They have recent black mayors that screw up everything. I would never send my kids there. There are hoodlums that love to kill, rob,mug, jack, jump, shoot and kill innocent people. It 's filled with murderers.

KNOCK IT OFF! Your city wouldn't let black folks leave Mission Hill. Your streets used to be loaded with Irish gangs and have the largest Irish mafia after New York City's notorious FIVE POINTS. Your city represents the foundation of American Freedom. It's keep it that way. You take care your business, we take care of ours.

I've been hearing remarks like that since I was a little kid.

There is no way to take it that isn't ugly and tinged with a little bit of hatred/racism.

I mean what are you blowing up? The infrastructure? The name and history?...The people living in the city?

Last time I heard was on the campus of UDM. "Detroit should be fire bombed and just put a big walmart on top". A fat ugly white whalebitch said it. Hard as that is to believe,

It always saddens me that we spend so much of our time and energy blasting those who say bad things about us, and so little of our time and energy trying to fix the problems, which are real and unarguable.

The Mayor said "Why? Inaction, that’s the problem — leadership." What part of that is false? What difference does it make what anyone else says about Detroit when it takes forever for a policeman to come to a crime scene, if in fact he ever comes - the two times my car was stolen and the two times my apartment was burglarized, none ever came. Roughly half the streetlights are out; this is a simple fact which the Mayor of Boston did not make up. Our bus service is among the worst anywhere. Despite the fact that residents are desperate for businesses to come to their neightborhoods, the City makes it ludicrously difficult for anyone to open a business. One point one million people left the City for serious reasons.

Who gives a shit what anyone says about us? We should be fixing the damned problems, and in the meantime anyone can say whatever the hell they like.

Detroit has gone from being a city of tough people to a bunch of overly sensitive wimps.

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Originally Posted by brizee

I've been hearing remarks like that since I was a little kid.

There is no way to take it that isn't ugly and tinged with a little bit of hatred/racism.

I mean what are you blowing up? The infrastructure? The name and history?...The people living in the city?

Last time I heard was on the campus of UDM. "Detroit should be fire bombed and just put a big walmart on top". A fat ugly white whalebitch said it. Hard as that is to believe,

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So this is about what you hear? So the guy used a strong metaphor. Detroit does need some strong action. Maybe that's what he meant -- and not whatever you are paranoid about.

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Originally Posted by professorscott

It always saddens me that we spend so much of our time and energy blasting those who say bad things about us, and so little of our time and energy trying to fix the problems, which are real and unarguable.

The Mayor said "Why? Inaction, that’s the problem — leadership." What part of that is false? What difference does it make what anyone else says about Detroit when it takes forever for a policeman to come to a crime scene, if in fact he ever comes - the two times my car was stolen and the two times my apartment was burglarized, none ever came. Roughly half the streetlights are out; this is a simple fact which the Mayor of Boston did not make up. Our bus service is among the worst anywhere. Despite the fact that residents are desperate for businesses to come to their neightborhoods, the City makes it ludicrously difficult for anyone to open a business. One point one million people left the City for serious reasons.

Who gives a shit what anyone says about us? We should be fixing the damned problems, and in the meantime anyone can say whatever the hell they like.

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Thank you. Everyone here is ignoring the meat of his statement - that the leadership is totally absent. I was thinking about how I read on here yesterday that our future leaders are Saunteel Jenkins and Lisa Howze. Really? REALLY? Then we're in trouble. Two people who don't seem to understand the concept of a financial emergency. More of the same ignorance.

Then we have a mayor who impotently goes and says "HEY, not MOST of our buildings are boarded up [[not incorrectly - most are open and dangerous), and cops only take an HOUR, not 90 minutes" this is a mayor whose sole accomplishment is quietly watching the city go into bankruptcy.

Mayor Menino is a wildly popular mayor of a beautiful, prosperous, and decreasingly dangerous city. A city with tremendous transit, walkability, and livability. The ghettos of Boston are like our "nice" areas. I would absolutely vote to have him come in here to mop things up.

I invite you to read his wikipedia page and learn about what real leadership is, and salivate over the good things they have going on in Boston. But hey, here we're so fucking smart we're demolishing a bunch of homes - PROGRESS!

Well there is a little factuality issue. If one is going to throw stones one should check the facts.

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...when it takes a police officer 90 minutes to answer a call...

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Wrong. It is bad but not 90 minutes. I believe I last heard it was 58 although I have my suspicions of that as being exaggerated so the EFM can announce improvements in the future.

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Forty percent of the streetlights are out...

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Sounds about right.

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...most of the buildings are boarded up...

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Wrong. Most aren't, but most that should be aren't.

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Why? Inaction, that’s the problem — leadership.

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Sounds about right but I would have used the word paralysis.

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Originally Posted by poobert

Then we have a mayor who impotently goes and says "HEY, not MOST of our buildings are boarded up [[not incorrectly - most are open and dangerous), and cops only take an HOUR, not 90 minutes" this is a mayor whose sole accomplishment is quietly watching the city go into bankruptcy.

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I'm disregarding everyone's viewpoints in this thread, left, right, or center. I want to focus on only one thing. Bing went silent while the citizens of the city he represents were slaughtered. Remember the shooting at the bus stop at Warren/Southfield that Bing had nothing to say about? There were many others. Not a word from Bing, not a peep. Then the mayor of Boston makes a silly quip [[I don't believe it is his place, but also not a statement worth responding to) and Bing suddenly has something to say? Bing is the poster child of what is wrong with this city. When a real life threatening problem occurs, we shrug our shoulders. But Lord no, don't let someone criticize us. Bing needed to have his ass addressing the wild ass murder rate in this city. He shouldn't even know what the Boston mayor said as it should be so far down on his radar that it would take 50 terms to get to.

Why is anyone giving Bing any attention?

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Originally Posted by Lowell

Well there is a little factuality issue. If one is going to throw stones one should check the facts.

Wrong. It is bad but not 90 minutes. I believe I last heard it was 58 although I have my suspicions of that as being exaggerated so the EFM can announce improvements in the future.
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There is absolutely no difference between 58 and 90 minute response time. Both are so far past acceptable and so far outside of the lowest expectations imaginable.

Responding to these basically true statements defensively was the mistake. He allowed MM to define the terms of the discussion.

A leader might have responded by saying that he looked forward to MM's engagement with Detroit to help us rebuild. That he was glad the MM cared about the future of our city, and appreciated the first step MM took to help a sister city that is enduring tough times.

Worrying about being called names is 5th Grade.

And there's no defending 58 minute response time.

Collectively, Detroiters tend to think/react along the lines of "Hey, Detroit may very well be a hell hole, but it's OUR hell hole and we're damn sure proud of it!!!"

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Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

There is absolutely no difference between 58 and 90 minute response time.

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Note, also, that the average only incorporates events to which the police responded. It does not take into account events in which, in any normal city, police would have responded. For example, I am still awaiting a police response to a car theft in 1981 and another in 1987 and two home burglaries in 1989. So my average wait time, so far, is about 13.7 million minutes.

And Wesley is right, these kinds of response times are so far beyond normal that making detailed distinctions is inane, and I wish I could come up with a stronger word than "inane". Your house is on fire and you're arguing over what radio station you should be listening to while you die in the blaze.

The reactions here have not surprised me, and mostly have only saddened me further. It doesn't make any effing difference what the Mayor of Boston or anybody else says about Detroit. The City is broken, absolutely and shockingly broken, and the politicols are mostly in denial. You remember the story about Nero fiddling while Rome burned? Well, kids, here we are.

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Originally Posted by brizee

tinged with a little bit of hatred/racism.

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Originally Posted by brizee

A fat ugly white whalebitch said it.

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Lovely double standard you have there! Physician heal thyself.

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Originally Posted by aj3647

Lovely double standard you have there! Physician heal thyself.

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She was fat.

She was white.

She was ugly.

These are facts.

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Originally Posted by Crumbled_pavement

Bing went silent while the citizens of the city he represents were slaughtered. Remember the shooting at the bus stop at Warren/Southfield that Bing had nothing to say about? There were many others. Not a word from Bing, not a peep. Then the mayor of Boston makes a silly quip [[I don't believe it is his place, but also not a statement worth responding to) and Bing suddenly has something to say? Bing is the poster child of what is wrong with this city. When a real life threatening problem occurs, we shrug our shoulders. But Lord no, don't let someone criticize us. Bing needed to have his ass addressing the wild ass murder rate in this city. He shouldn't even know what the Boston mayor said as it should be so far down on his radar that it would take 50 terms to get to.

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Couldn't agree more.

I was hoping that Cockrel would win, but I was still excited when Bing won. I thought he was going to do a great job.

All he has done is just watched while talking out of both sides of his mouth.

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Originally Posted by professorscott

It always saddens me that we spend so much of our time and energy blasting those who say bad things about us, and so little of our time and energy trying to fix the problems, which are real and unarguable.

The Mayor said "Why? Inaction, that’s the problem — leadership." What part of that is false? What difference does it make what anyone else says about Detroit when it takes forever for a policeman to come to a crime scene, if in fact he ever comes - the two times my car was stolen and the two times my apartment was burglarized, none ever came. Roughly half the streetlights are out; this is a simple fact which the Mayor of Boston did not make up. Our bus service is among the worst anywhere. Despite the fact that residents are desperate for businesses to come to their neightborhoods, the City makes it ludicrously difficult for anyone to open a business. One point one million people left the City for serious reasons.

Who gives a shit what anyone says about us? We should be fixing the damned problems, and in the meantime anyone can say whatever the hell they like.

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So because the city has problems means it doesn't deserve respect?

I guess I have a different perspective on this since I don't live in the Detroit area. Whenever I tell someone that I am a Detroit native the reaction is always negative. Detroit has such a serious image problem that I don't think you can even grasp how bad it is unless you spend a lot of time outside of the metro area. It's image will be a major hindrance to its revival, and part of fixing that image problem will be for it to challenge some perceptions of it that are being disseminated by the media.

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

So because the city has problems means it doesn't deserve respect?

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Respect is earned and NOT a given. We can't even hold a simple Mayoral Primary without becoming the USA 3rd World City laughing stock of the world. I know, I know, we have a company that makes and sells blue jeans for $250 ea.

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Originally Posted by Honky Tonk

Respect is earned and NOT a given. We can't even hold a simple Mayoral Primary without becoming the USA 3rd World City laughing stock of the world. I know, I know, we have a company that makes and sells blue jeans for $250 ea.

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Eh, Detroit has a lot that it should be respected for but isn't. But maybe part of the problem is that the people who live in and around Detroit don't respect it? If you don't respect the place where you are from then no one else will either.

Once upon a time, Frank Lloyd Wright was contracted by Detroit to produce a plan that would make the city more livable. After due consideration, Wright made a typically dramatic presentation at a meeting of the City Council. He said, "I suggest, you tear it all down and start over."

So this has been going on for some time. And many "responsible" people have expressed this view. I think it says something about us that we'd actually consider it reasonable to trash an entire city and start from scratch.

Maybe that's the problem in the first place?

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Originally Posted by brizee

She was fat.

She was white.

She was ugly.

These are facts.

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Is a whalebitch somewhat like a siren, or a factual thing?

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

Eh, Detroit has a lot that it should be respected for but isn't. But maybe part of the problem is that the people who live in and around Detroit don't respect it? If you don't respect the place where you are from then no one else will either.

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Bingo.....

The younger generation of Metro Detroit is much more positive about the city than the previous.

What is extra frustrating about comments like "bulldoze and start over" is that, in many respects, this has already taken place, or is going to take place. Moreover, Detroit Future City project is calling for a massive demolition and relocation project that will consolidate the city's population into a few core areas.

The catch-22 here is that the areas targeted for demolition are in the core of the city, and would be key second-wave development areas [[after the first wave of the inner core, i.e. Downtown neighborhoods are redeveloped). While at the same time, the plan does nothing to address sprawl in the region. Detroit could have avoided much of the population leak had state-wide and region-wide policies been implemented that prevented sprawl and encouraged development in the core of the city.

It is NOT too late, however. Drive through the east side. It may look eerie and abandoned, but there are still a great many people still living there. There are historic structures and a logical street grid [[an anomaly for pre-depression area Detroit), as well as a strategic orientation toward the river that is untapped.

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Originally Posted by brizee

She was fat.

She was white.

She was ugly.

These are facts.

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Well, "white" you can ordinarily tell by looking, and "fat" at least has some kind of objective standard you can play with [[BMI over 30, for instance) but "ugly" is entirely subjective. So you probably have two-thirds facts going for you here.

To put it in context - Menino is a bit of an idiot when it comes to speaking. There's a famous press conference from a few years ago where he mispronounced the word "Boston."