Patterson positioning himself for a fifth term ...

[Detroitnerd]

... and using the occasion to beat up on Pontiac. Sort of like the rich guy with two speedboats complaining about the lady down the street who was fired from CVS after her husband left her for a younger woman. Stay classy, Lewis...

http://detnews.com/article/20110712/...%80%99s-headed

What's the future of Detroit? Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson points to Pontiac as a harbinger: It's the big city's smaller Oakland County mirror image, and it's a disaster.
He blames Pontiac officials for managing the city badly, refusing timely offers of help and now turning to the county out of desperation. "Pontiac," he says, "is nothing but a drain [[on the county.) We offered, repeatedly, to help. They basically said, 'Get out.'"
It's a measure of these still tough times that Patterson — who used to boast that his county was one of the nation's three wealthiest large counties — is now touting the county's "diminished rate of decline," as property values continue to sink. They're down by $14 billion from their peak, and the best projections say they'll fall for another two years.
During an interview in his office, Patterson displayed every indication he relished fighting for Oakland County as much during a prolonged economic disaster as he had during the glory years before recession struck. Now in his fifth term, he's positioning himself for a 2012 election campaign as a farsighted administrator who knows how to cope with adversity.

[Hypestyles]

so, who.. if anyone at all.. has a legitimate chance of challenging him on the Democratic side of things? I suspect no one, but...

..on another note, who, if anyone, does Brooks consider his natural successor? Mike Bouchard?

[internet_pseudopod]

Ahhh...Oakland County Executive using the demise of his county seat to trash Detroit. That's Pure Michigan™.

[Vox]

I will speculate who his Democratic opposition will be. Andy Meisner, current OC Treasurer.

[DetroitPlanner]

Kwame needs a job maybe he will run?

[iheartthed]

Kwame needs a job maybe he will run?

Isn't he barred from running for public office in Michigan?

[Bigb23]

I hope he doesn't make any whistle stop tours on the local RR tracks in his county supplied Cadillac.

[luckycar]

All the LBP hate in the world doesn't change the facts.Pontiac is a sewer,an open drain.It has been mismanaged,stolen from,poorly planned and the race card has been played so many times that the cards in that deck are worn out.Oh and GM left it to wither and die.Its clownsil and mayor are now just elected place holders now that the state runs the show.A future for Detroit?Time will tell,but LBP is correct in saying so if Detroit doesn't get its house in order.

[Tig3rzhark]

So basically what he's saying that if Detroit's governmental officials aren't careful, the city itself could end up like Benton Harbor, Highland Park and Pontiac.

Appointed EFM

Powerless local leaders

and Layed-off city employees.

[Baselinepunk]

Andy is a good guy and a great politico. I don't think he'll be in just yet.

With gerrymandering, Gary Peters and Sandy Levin are doubled up in the same district.

Look for Gary Peters for Oakland County Executive 2012.

[bartock]

All the LBP hate in the world doesn't change the facts.Pontiac is a sewer,an open drain.It has been mismanaged,stolen from,poorly planned and the race card has been played so many times that the cards in that deck are worn out.Oh and GM left it to wither and die.Its clownsil and mayor are now just elected place holders now that the state runs the show.A future for Detroit?Time will tell,but LBP is correct in saying so if Detroit doesn't get its house in order.

How dare you suggest that Pontiac may be mismanaged!

[bartock]

... and using the occasion to beat up on Pontiac. Sort of like the rich guy with two speedboats complaining about the lady down the street who was fired from CVS after her husband left her for a younger woman. Stay classy, Lewis...

http://detnews.com/article/20110712/...%80%99s-headed

What's the future of Detroit? Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson points to Pontiac as a harbinger: It's the big city's smaller Oakland County mirror image, and it's a disaster.
He blames Pontiac officials for managing the city badly, refusing timely offers of help and now turning to the county out of desperation. "Pontiac," he says, "is nothing but a drain [[on the county.) We offered, repeatedly, to help. They basically said, 'Get out.'"
It's a measure of these still tough times that Patterson — who used to boast that his county was one of the nation's three wealthiest large counties — is now touting the county's "diminished rate of decline," as property values continue to sink. They're down by $14 billion from their peak, and the best projections say they'll fall for another two years.
During an interview in his office, Patterson displayed every indication he relished fighting for Oakland County as much during a prolonged economic disaster as he had during the glory years before recession struck. Now in his fifth term, he's positioning himself for a 2012 election campaign as a farsighted administrator who knows how to cope with adversity.

DNerd, have you lost it?

[Det_ard]

Having dealt with Pontiac's "leaders" over the years, they richly deserve all the scorn and contempt one can muster. Those folks took a declining city and just about killed it.

[Detroitnerd]

DNerd, have you lost it?

I don't follow you.

For others who point to the poor and often corrupt leadership of Pontiac [[and Detroit), let me draw out for you how this happens.

1) After World War II, the government decided to subsidize suburbia and car culture and spread factories out from urban centers to protect against nuclear attack.

2) Most of these subsidies benefited GIs, who were overwhelmingly white, and they left traditional urban centers for suburban areas.

3) Thanks to long-overdue court rulings outlawing no-blacks clauses, blacks were able to buy the homes, at great profit for real estate dealers, that were being abandoned by white families moving to the suburbs.

4) Just as new black families were moving north to Michigan with the dream of factory work and home ownership, the powers that be were shutting down urban factories, stores and disinvesting in those neighborhoods, choosing to divert that money to the more profitable and heavily subsidized suburbs.

5) Urban residents, black and white alike, became increasingly unemployed, destitute, and poorly educated, thanks to provisions in American life that tie the kind of education you get to how prosperous the area you live in is.

6) Thanks to continuing this process for years, decades, the people who live in urban areas in southeast Michigan are increasingly poor, illiterate, civically unengaged and suspicious of outsiders. What kind of people get elected in an environment like this? Sly hucksters, pocket-padding gamers, well-meaning demagogues and the occasional honest public servant.

So, please, ignore everything up until No. 6. That way you can shit all over the hard-done-by people of Detroit and Pontiac and still chuckle your way home every night. After all, it's not public policy, right? Haha. They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. We all have nothing to do with their plight, right?

And, frankly, a talking banana could have run Oakland County when Brooks did and still had an approval rating of 90 percent. You don't have to do anything but chuckle and let the money roll in when you're as heavily subsidized as Oakland County, and your only job is to pick off the carcasses of dying cities.

[bartock]

I don't follow you.

For others who point to the poor and often corrupt leadership of Pontiac [[and Detroit), let me draw out for you how this happens.

1) After World War II, the government decided to subsidize suburbia and car culture and spread factories out from urban centers to protect against nuclear attack.

2) Most of these subsidies benefited GIs, who were overwhelmingly white, and they left traditional urban centers for suburban areas.

3) Thanks to long-overdue court rulings outlawing no-blacks clauses, blacks were able to buy the homes, at great profit for real estate dealers, that were being abandoned by white families moving to the suburbs.

4) Just as new black families were moving north to Michigan with the dream of factory work and home ownership, the powers that be were shutting down urban factories, stores and disinvesting in those neighborhoods, choosing to divert that money to the more profitable and heavily subsidized suburbs.

5) Urban residents, black and white alike, became increasingly unemployed, destitute, and poorly educated, thanks to provisions in American life that tie the kind of education you get to how prosperous the area you live in is.

6) Thanks to continuing this process for years, decades, the people who live in urban areas in southeast Michigan are increasingly poor, illiterate, civically unengaged and suspicious of outsiders. What kind of people get elected in an environment like this? Sly hucksters, pocket-padding gamers, well-meaning demagogues and the occasional honest public servant.

So, please, ignore everything up until No. 6. That way you can shit all over the hard-done-by people of Detroit and Pontiac and still chuckle your way home every night. After all, it's not public policy, right? Haha. They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. We all have nothing to do with their plight, right?

And, frankly, a talking banana could have run Oakland County when Brooks did and still had an approval rating of 90 percent. You don't have to do anything but chuckle and let the money roll in when you're as heavily subsidized as Oakland County, and your only job is to pick off the carcasses of dying cities.

There is far too much racism in your points of view and perspective. And it doesn't matter what color you are. Look at your explanation, why hasn't every big city in America gone the way of Detroit then? You so often treat discuss Detroit as if it is in a vaccuum, then you come up with this universal explanation for what happened to it and places like Pontiac? And you are probably right about L. Brooks...the same could be said for Detroit, which lost a golden opportunity due to failed and corrupt leadership during that same time frame, and is arguably [[read: arguably) more subsidized than any other area of Michigan. But, if it ain't white, it ain't to blame, I suppose.

[Detroitnerd]

There is far too much racism in your points of view and perspective.

That's a laugh. Where is the racism? This history is well-documented. Disprove it if you can. And, jeez, look who's playing the "race card" now!

And it doesn't matter what color you are. Look at your explanation, why hasn't every big city in America gone the way of Detroit then?

It's not BIG cities, Bartock. Much of it has to do with Detroit's history of heavy industry. That is a major part of the history of Pontiac and Detroit. As we've offshored and diffused industry, it has disproportionately affected Northern industrial cities that were able to suburbanize. Could be as big as Detroit or as small as Gary, the trend holds true.

You so often treat discuss Detroit as if it is in a vaccuum then you come up with this universal explanation for what happened to it and places like Pontiac?

On the contrary -- perhaps you haven't been paying attention to my hundreds of posts and longer rants -- I have often posted about Detroit's history and its demise in relation to nationwide trends. I'm just summing it up again for those [[you included, I guess) who may have missed it over the years.

And you are probably right about L. Brooks...the same could be said for Detroit, which lost a golden opportunity due to failed and corrupt leadership during that same time frame

I think you miss my point. It is not the corruption of these hard-done-by Northern industrial cities that spelled their ruin. Their ruin is related to broad, nationwide postwar trends that disproportionately affected traditional urban industrial centers. The corrupt leadership elected by a poor, uneducated populace is the symptom, not the disease. The sooner we recognize that, the better we'll be at dealing with our regional problems ... hopefully together.

and is arguably [[read: arguably) more subsidized than any other area of Michigan. But, if it ain't white, it ain't to blame, I suppose.

What? Detroit is more subsidized than any other part of Michigan? Did you read my post? How much money has the United States government spent, in subsidies to homebuyers [[G.I. Bill, mortgage interest tax write-off), subsidies to car culture [[1956 Interstate Highway Act), fostering industrial dispersal [[national program to move industry outside cities) over the course of a half-century? It's all well and good to ignore that now and simply claim that a lot of money is showered on Detroit, but I will bet that even if Detroit did [[I doubt it does) get more money per person from Michigan and the feds, that Detroiters still see a smaller amount of it come back to them. [[Remember that corrupt leadership you keep talking about?)

Basically, I read your response and I think that you haven't really even read what I posted. That you are unwilling to look at the historical situation that has led to today. It must be difficult to give up dearly cherished and soothing prejudices about how city leaders have brought on their own demise, but the historical record just doesn't back it up. And so, either you take a longer view and better understand what has happened here, or you are simply clinging to prejudice.

[Bham1982]

That's a laugh. Where is the racism? This history is well-documented. Disprove it if you can. And, jeez, look who's playing the "race card" now!

Unlike Detroit, Pontiac was, until relatively recently, majority white, and still maintains large white and Hispanic populations, so there goes that explanation.

Pontiac is a corrupt cesspool. There are plenty of working class, diverse, postindustrial cities that aren't corrupt cesspools. To blame their current incompetence on the 1940's GI Bill or whatever is laughable.

[Detroitnerd]

Unlike Detroit, Pontiac was, until relatively recently, majority white, and still maintains large white and Hispanic populations, so there goes that explanation.

Detroit is where I was born and live, and my hobby, so to speak, so I am naturally more familiar with Detroit. But you can replace "white" and "black" with "haves" and "have-nots" and the theme is basically the same. Thanks for the details, though.

Pontiac is a corrupt cesspool. There are plenty of working class, diverse, postindustrial cities that aren't corrupt cesspools. To blame their current incompetence on the 1940's GI Bill or whatever is laughable.

Well, Bham, how do corrupt politicians come into power except by fooling uneducated, poor, civically unengaged voters? Is there some other way? And how did our cities become poor?

Oh, no. Sweep that story under the rug. It interferes with my "conventional wisdom" about the region and would force me to think about things. I am aware that this would make you uncomfortable, so I exempt you from reading about it or participating in this conversation.

[ghettopalmetto]

Pontiac is a corrupt cesspool. There are plenty of working class, diverse, postindustrial cities that aren't corrupt cesspools. To blame their current incompetence on the 1940's GI Bill or whatever is laughable.

This statement is very telling, in that it reveals your assumption that "incompetence" is the cause and not the effect. Ask yourself honestly--do you think the politicians in Pontiac [[or Detroit, for that matter) would be able to attain elected office in a place like Chicago or DC, where the electorate is a hell of a lot more educated?

Incompetence isn't just an urban, postindustrial city fad. It also occurs in small, rural towns in geographic areas outside the Northeast and Midwest--basically anywhere education levels are low, and the pickings for leadership are slim-to-none.

And I love Detroitnerd's assessment of Brooks Patterson's "leadership"--as long as the heavily-subsidized Sprawl Machine continued unabated in Oakland County, the County Executive could do no wrong--no matter *who* it was. A talking banana might have been a waste of good talent in that role.

[iheartthed]

Unlike Detroit, Pontiac was, until relatively recently, majority white, and still maintains large white and Hispanic populations, so there goes that explanation.

Pontiac is a corrupt cesspool. There are plenty of working class, diverse, postindustrial cities that aren't corrupt cesspools. To blame their current incompetence on the 1940's GI Bill or whatever is laughable.

A certain county executive basically owes his political career to his days as a young lawyer fighting the court mandated busing between predominantly minority Pontiac schools and other predominantly non-minority Oakland County school districts.

[bartock]

That's a laugh. Where is the racism? This history is well-documented. Disprove it if you can. And, jeez, look who's playing the "race card" now!



It's not BIG cities, Bartock. Much of it has to do with Detroit's history of heavy industry. That is a major part of the history of Pontiac and Detroit. As we've offshored and diffused industry, it has disproportionately affected Northern industrial cities that were able to suburbanize. Could be as big as Detroit or as small as Gary, the trend holds true.



On the contrary -- perhaps you haven't been paying attention to my hundreds of posts and longer rants -- I have often posted about Detroit's history and its demise in relation to nationwide trends. I'm just summing it up again for those [[you included, I guess) who may have missed it over the years.



I think you miss my point. It is not the corruption of these hard-done-by Northern industrial cities that spelled their ruin. Their ruin is related to broad, nationwide postwar trends that disproportionately affected traditional urban industrial centers. The corrupt leadership elected by a poor, uneducated populace is the symptom, not the disease. The sooner we recognize that, the better we'll be at dealing with our regional problems ... hopefully together.



What? Detroit is more subsidized than any other part of Michigan? Did you read my post? How much money has the United States government spent, in subsidies to homebuyers [[G.I. Bill, mortgage interest tax write-off), subsidies to car culture [[1956 Interstate Highway Act), fostering industrial dispersal [[national program to move industry outside cities) over the course of a half-century? It's all well and good to ignore that now and simply claim that a lot of money is showered on Detroit, but I will bet that even if Detroit did [[I doubt it does) get more money per person from Michigan and the feds, that Detroiters still see a smaller amount of it come back to them. [[Remember that corrupt leadership you keep talking about?)

Basically, I read your response and I think that you haven't really even read what I posted. That you are unwilling to look at the historical situation that has led to today. It must be difficult to give up dearly cherished and soothing prejudices about how city leaders have brought on their own demise, but the historical record just doesn't back it up. And so, either you take a longer view and better understand what has happened here, or you are simply clinging to prejudice.

Prejudice? Against whom? By your arguments, I should be calling up my parents and saying "how dare you" for moving out of Detroit in the late 70s because they had young children and crime in their part of the world was literally shooting up. And YOU put the racial spin on it, as if someone has to feel guilty for wanting to leave a place that's become potentially dangerous for their children.

That's fine if you are now talking about industrial cities of all sizes...that is not what your original post said at all.

It is, of course, wise to look at history, but to continue and place this back to one thing [[and again, why if it was all related to GIs coming back did this not affect EVERY city) is obviously short-sighted. One trick economic pony, the movement of industry off-shore, housing, racial polarity, social programs, etc., blah, blah, blah, all play into it. Corruption too. That's a big one, been going on for the better part of 30 years now; time to assign some blame there.

[ghettopalmetto]

It is, of course, wise to look at history, but to continue and place this back to one thing [[and again, why if it was all related to GIs coming back did this not affect EVERY city) is obviously short-sighted. One trick economic pony, the movement of industry off-shore, housing, racial polarity, social programs, etc., blah, blah, blah, all play into it. Corruption too. That's a big one, been going on for the better part of 30 years now; time to assign some blame there.

It DID affect every city: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Erie, Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Toledo, Chicago, Washington... All of these cities saw identical phenomena as Detroit and Pontiac in the postwar years. The difference is that cities like Detroit, Pontiac, and Flint [[and Youngstown) suffered the effects disproportionately compared to their peers, thanks to a reliance on automobile manufacturing that was shipped out to the suburbs and rural areas of the Midwest. That phenomenon has been occurring for SIXTY years.

If you spend 30 years subsidizing the emptying out of central cities by the stabilizing middle-class, then it's disingenous to be dumbfounded as to why incompetence started showing up among local politicians.

[Bham1982]

This statement is very telling, in that it reveals your assumption that "incompetence" is the cause and not the effect. Ask yourself honestly--do you think the politicians in Pontiac [[or Detroit, for that matter) would be able to attain elected office in a place like Chicago or DC, where the electorate is a hell of a lot more educated?

Chicago and DC are quite different from one another, though both are infamous for municipal corruption.

Every heard of Marion Barry? How about the half-century Daley machine? Chicago's Governor Blagovich? Or the current Chicago mayor, who illegally claimed domicile for the mayorality [[he lived in DC)?

Overall, Chicago is quite a bit more comparable to Pontiac than DC in terms of demographic and educational factors. Still pretty different, though.

Demographics, however, don't determine municipal corruption and incompetence. Orange County, CA [[one of the richest U.S. counties) has declared bankruptcy once, and is getting close again. Nassau County, NY [[even richer than Orange County, CA) is a fiscal punchline, with absurd spending.

Then there are poor, heavily nonwhite cities where you see responsible municipal govt. Lansing is relatively well run. Battle Creek is generally well run.

[Bham1982]

A certain county executive basically owes his political career to his days as a young lawyer fighting the court mandated busing between predominantly minority Pontiac schools and other predominantly non-minority Oakland County school districts.

The infamous Pontiac desegregation wars were totally within Pontiac school district boundaries. Pontiac's East Side was black, but West Side and North Side were white.

Pontiac, unlike Detroit, still has lots of working class whites. I would wager that, even today, the % black in Pontiac schools is significantly lower than in Detroit.

Nowadays, Pontiac's West Side is still heavily white, while the North Side has transitioned from white to Mexican Hispanic.

[ghettopalmetto]

Chicago and DC are quite different from one another, though both are infamous for municipal corruption.

Every heard of Marion Barry? How about the half-century Daley machine? Chicago's Governor Blagovich? Or the current Chicago mayor, who illegally claimed domicile for the mayorality [[he lived in DC)?

Overall, Chicago is quite a bit more comparable to Pontiac than DC in terms of demographic and educational factors. Still pretty different, though.

And you would know this because you lived in those places?

You're looking at the present moment. The policies that affected Detroit and Pontiac have affected all of the places I listed for the past sixty-five years, some more than others. You blatantly ignore history in favor of determining long-term trends from examining only the current blip in time.