Detroit in the Matrix

Very good opinion piece by Rochelle Riley::
http://www.freep.com/article/2009041...illing+Detroit

She's right when she says that the city council is drunk on power and many residents have trouble facing the current reality of Detroit. And things will only get worse with the inevitable demise of GM and Chrysler. Detroit, once a one horse town is now a no horse town. Some extremely drastic decisions must be made in the next few months or Detroit will never recover. I predict a future population under 400k.

Discuss. . .

I read that article this morning and couldn’t agree more. Looking at the past and trying to bring it back is not the solution for our ills. Doing the same crap over and over and expecting different results is how Einstein defined insanity. Until we collectively change our paradigm and look at new ways to define the area, we will continue to be on life support until someone pulls the plug. As for Council, they are power drunk, and delusional, with a $300 million deficit, shrinking population and tax base, what power do they really have?

Sound reasoning there.

We're all in The Matrix, we all see what we want to see. It is difficult for a lot of people to get their arms around the idea of a Detroit with only 400 or 500,000 residents - this possibility flies in the face of those great old newsreels of a bustling city - the Motor City, the Arsenal of Democracy, Motown, where throngs of people packed the downtown sidewalks. But those people are all dead now, and many of their living relations have never known Detroit as a home or a destination.

The dwindling population means more blight and more urban praries. Imagine what the Detroit landscape would look like if every single derelict property were removed all at once. Talk about reality. Part of The Matrix is also the sorry attempts to create a streetscape for visitors who have ventured into town for the Super Bowl or All-Star Game or Final Four - how like a Twilight Zone or Hitchcock episode - there's nothing behind those sham facades. So sad, so damn pathetic.

Build anew, but build smaller, more compact, smarter. Reorganize, feed and cloth your children for the bigger world, not your gangsta' neighborhood. Educate your citizens, get them to think for themselves, and not give in to name calling and devisive race baiting.

Call for the help of the metro area and the state and the White House, and then actually show that the help from all of these quarters has made a difference.

Books have been written about this. No place on earth since the Exodus from Egypt has the population shifted so quickly or dramatically.

Detroit will continue to lose population until our society as a whole changes, which won't be anytime soon. Such as:

When races and religions decide it's OK to live next door to each other. Remove the walls of polarization and racial politics.

When the gap between rich and poor has shrunken.

When the birthright of all Americans is a socialized health care system based on the Swedish model, and when a free public education means a quality one.

When American coroprations are required to employ Americans by quota before they can expand overseas.

When the federal government returns to a tarrif based foreign trade system.

When we return to a1950's domestic personal tax policy of taxing income over 2 million per year at 90 percent, to stop the practice of legacy wealth from creating generations of lazy, entitiled people from sitting on their backsides and day trading on their laptops by the pool.

Only with new federal policies, and local elected officials held accountable for their nonsense, will employment increase, education improve, and the promise of a city and country with a future become reality.