What will it take for people to believe? Lansing Take Over of Detroit.

[lilpup]

I think a valid question would be "Who do Detroiters really believe is on their side?" Council? Bing? Kwame? People need to start accepting the fact that just because someone has the same skin color that doesn't mean they serve the same interests you do.

[Novine]

They should trust the people in Lansing, particularly Republicans? Or L. Brooks Patterson? Those are the people who have made it pretty clear that they couldn't care less if the city went down the tubes. Many of them have been pretty clear about their hostility towards Detroit for years, and in some cases decades. Whether that's been driven by race or ideology, if I was dealing with people with that kind of attitude, I wouldn't trust them when they suddenly discover an interest in the city's plight. Only Snyder might escape this suspicion because of his lack of past political involvement but since his policy decisions over the past year have had the short-term effect of exacerbating Detroit's financial distress, it's hard to put much trust in his motives either.

[Zacha341]

Agreed. We take our 'butt kicking' better when it comes from the dems. Our default 'friends' as it were.

Snyder and the repubs will always be perceived the grim reaper 'deluxe' now that the bill has come due [[chickens roosting) withstanding the other policies and the corruption that have led us here.

LOL! Hah! Engler will be invoked often as part of the what lead us here, that's arguable - I get that. But there was an eight year span between that to Snyder.

L Brooks Patterson? Yeah good ole Brooksy and our own play ground of goodies ala Ficano and his friends, ostensibly our friends in the party... after all he ain't no repub so it can't be that bad...

They should trust the people in Lansing, particularly Republicans? Or L. Brooks Patterson? Those are the people who have made it pretty clear that they couldn't care less if the city went down the tubes. Many of them have been pretty clear about their hostility towards Detroit for years, and in some cases decades. Whether that's been driven by race or ideology, if I was dealing with people with that kind of attitude, I wouldn't trust them when they suddenly discover an interest in the city's plight. Only Snyder might escape this suspicion because of his lack of past political involvement but since his policy decisions over the past year have had the short-term effect of exacerbating Detroit's financial distress, it's hard to put much trust in his motives either.

[De'troiter]

I think a valid question would be "Who do Detroiters really believe is on their side?" Council? Bing? Kwame? People need to start accepting the fact that just because someone has the same skin color that doesn't mean they serve the same interests you do.

None of the people that you listed are seen as Saviours, especially not Bing, and not even President Obama! Thats the problem. Most Detroiters lack trust in the government as a whole, on every level. That is why there are so many churches in Detroit. The only justice that many Detroiters believe in is the justice of GOD. Detroiters know all about corruption and the ill effects of it, coming from both white and blacks. Only a fool would believe that they enjoy a substandard quality of life. Also Blacks do not support everything Black, this is why many Black businesses in the City fail, while Chaldean, Arabic, Chinese, and Korean businesses flourish. That is the plight of the Black community. The majority of the Black dollar, has 0 rotation in the Black community before it leaves, while other communities have 4-6 rotations within that same community before it leaves.

[lilpup]

None of the people that you listed are seen as Saviours, especially not Bing, and not even President Obama! Thats the problem. Most Detroiters lack trust in the government as a whole, on every level. That is why there are so many churches in Detroit. The only justice that many Detroiters believe in is the justice of GOD. Detroiters know all about corruption and the ill effects of it, coming from both white and blacks. Only a fool would believe that they enjoy a substandard quality of life. Also Blacks do not support everything Black, this is why many Black businesses in the City fail, while Chaldean, Arabic, Chinese, and Korean businesses flourish. That is the plight of the Black community. The majority of the Black dollar, has 0 rotation in the Black community before it leaves, while other communities have 4-6 rotations within that same community before it leaves.

Exactly. So essentially it's irrelevant who steps in and finally cleans house.

[antongast]

Exactly. So essentially it's irrelevant who steps in and finally cleans house.

Not necessarily, it just means that everyone currently in the picture has done an extremely poor job of reaching out to Detroiters and gaining their trust. It's an uphill battle now that so many generations of leaders have screwed Detroit over so badly, but I don't think it's impossible, and I think it'll be hard to make any house-cleaning effort stick without any buy-in from people who actually live here.

[mwilbert]

I think it is important to keep two things separate, although they are certainly related. One is the functioning of the city, and one is the functioning of the city government.

An EFM can [[maybe) improve the functioning of the government, and I suspect that if it can be done, it can be done without any particular buy-in by the population. On the other hand, I don't think the city as a whole can be substantially improved if a large chunk of the people affected think the whole reform enterprise is being driven by people who don't have their best interests at heart.

The best case I can see is that the results of whatever is done are sufficiently positive that people eventually overcome their natural skepticism.

[Zacha341]

More of us have figured that out than it appears. Corruption gets hard to ignore when it is kicking you in the teeth... [[where's that ambulance we called half an hour ago!?)

'Self-interest' democratically inspired locally or otherwise and elsewhere was the supreme politic impacting Detroit for a long time. It was mostly smooth over by those who where getting some fringe benefits [[urban and suburban).

That has finally gotten old to celebrate peripherally - justifiably, without tangible cash flow, corrupt or otherwise. How long could it really go on?

I think a valid question would be "Who do Detroiters really believe is on their side?" Council? Bing? Kwame? People need to start accepting the fact that just because someone has the same skin color that doesn't mean they serve the same interests you do.