"Mr. President, Please Drive Through Detroit"

[SWMAP]

The Detroit News has a whopper of an editorial today. I would like nothing better than for our President to see the way we have to live in the United States of America in the 21st century.

"

If we could suggest a route, we'd start his tour on Detroit's largely deserted east side, past the heaps of rubble that were once businesses on Harper near City Airport, and into the blocks surrounding Denby High School off East Outer Drive, where there are more abandoned homes than occupied ones. But he could throw a stone almost anywhere in Detroit and hit neighborhoods that have been eaten away by cancerous blight.
It would be an invaluable field trip for the president — either today or sometime in the near future — to witness the shocking living conditions in so many Detroit neighborhoods. We can only imagine that he would summon the full force of his administration to get creative in seeking ways Washington could help stimulate a community revival in Detroit and, for that matter, other industrial cities that suffer from urban decay.
Policymakers at all levels should be asking themselves what it must be like for children walking to school past row after row of empty, burned out houses. They should consider the fear and frustration of those waiting at a bus stop darkened by broken streetlights for a bus that may never come. And they should think about the monumental task of rebuilding a city whose deterioration is so thorough.
Detroit, dancing on the edge of bankruptcy, doesn't have the resources to stop the decay, let alone rebuild the city. Michigan, just emerging from a decade-long recession, can't offer much help.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz1sP3J0J1z

[401don]

I think he knows exactly what condition the city is in. What exactly would you have a democratic president with a republican congress propose 6 mos. prior to an election?

[Detroitnerd]

If we could suggest a route, we'd start his tour on Detroit's largely deserted east side, past the heaps of rubble that were once businesses on Harper near City Airport, and into the blocks surrounding Denby High School off East Outer Drive, where there are more abandoned homes than occupied ones.

That's funny. I'd start the tour where I always do when guests come to town: Along Lakeshore Drive where the millionaires live. Out-of-towners are amazed by the urban decay, but more amazed that people live in sumptuous splendor just a mile away from the hopelessness of Detroit's ghettos. Thanks to home rule and municipal boundaries, none of their wealth will ever go toward alleviating the suffering in their back yard.

[Lowell]

I have long held the position that Detroit has experienced a long-running disaster, a slow motion Katrina, a spread-out 911. In the process we have experienced more deaths and destruction of business and personal properties, with tens of thousands of buildings and lives destroyed, than those two events combined.

Because our 'death of a thousand cuts' does not smack the national conscience in the face the the way the compacted disasters of Katrina and 911 have, we get scorn instead of sympathy -- and certainly not the instant billions with presidents and politicians posturing atop our ruins with firefighters.

Our de facto carpet-bombing is quietly and conveniently shelved. I would love to take any President or politicians on a fabulous ruins of Detroit tour.

I even have a back-burner project called 'Detroit Destroyed on on Week'. Using aerial animations and scatter charts cut in with street views it would compress 4 decades of death and destruction into a one week newsreel story.

Is it time to re-brand our disaster?

[hamtown mike]

I would also add "Mr. President, please take the time to walk the route that my daughter walks to get to school."

[Scottathew]

What could we do at a federal level?

The things I can think of are:

- Funding for the creation of a transit system [[creates transit AND jobs)
- Federal funding for increased law enforcement in the highest crime areas of the country, including Detroit


At the state level I do like that Snyder is providing additional state police for the worst areas of the state.

We need the people in Detroit to feel like the police are oppressive, instead of absent. No murder goes unsolved.

I have no idea how to fix DPS though.

[Detroitnerd]

We need the people in Detroit to feel like the police are oppressive, instead of absent.

Poor word choice? Or do you really feel that way?

[iheartthed]

Uh... Forreal? Does the Detroit News seriously think he hasn't seen it before?

Shortly after noon last Friday, as Obama's motorcade rode by Conner Street and Warren Avenue in Detroit, a clutch of women stood on the sidewalk, proudly waving signs that read, "OBAMA, OBAMA."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...#ixzz1sPHwjRXw

Not to say Obama's urban agenda isn't seriously lacking -- like every other President since Kennedy -- but he's seen that shit a number of times before. I doubt seeing it again would inspire less of an apathetic response...

[SWMAP]

Sorry - talk about a sanitized view. Please google up Conner and Warren for a laugh. AND that moment was two years ago. Much, much has changed in Detroit in two years of unbelievable poor leadership and incompetance.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&su...ed=0CCIQ8gEwAA

[rjk]

Obama's going after female voters.
The only way he'd drive through Detroit is if the city brought in bus loads of white woman.

[Det_ard]

Some folks had the impression that Obama was going to give a damn about Detroit, America's blackest city. Could he have ignored it any more than he did? Does anyone think he has an urban agenda, much less a "Detroit is special, lets spend lots of Fed money on it" plan? One word for the folks who thought the election [[or reelection) of Obama means anything for Detroit -- suckers.

[jpbollma]

I think after Obama's assistance for the Auto Industry and matching funds [[hopefully) for improved transit in the city, he won't be able to get anything else from this current congress that would help urban areas in any way.

[Hypestyles]

I suspect if his motorcade did go for any sort of stint in the distressed parts of Detroit proper [[or even downtown/midtown) the right-wing pundits would start harping that he's pandering to "unionists", "class warfare", "welfare interests", african-americans, etc... possibly run a clip of the Malik Shabazz rant, and much like the Hilary Rosen flap, there'd be a frenzied run by his advisors to "distance" himself, and in the meanwhile, avoid any substantive commentary on urban Detroit's challenges..

[crment]

I'm a democrat, and my frustration is that Detroit is 100% democrat. Neither party is motivate to do anything for the city. Republicans figuire they can't get our vote and Democrats take us for granted.

[antongast]

I'm a democrat, and my frustration is that Detroit is 100% democrat. Neither party is motivate to do anything for the city. Republicans figuire they can't get our vote and Democrats take us for granted.

Republicans also consistently pursue an agenda that is diametrically opposed to the interests of just about every single resident of the city. The problem isn't that Detroiters won't vote Republican, it's that there's no viable party to the left of the Democrats.

[Scottathew]

Poor word choice? Or do you really feel that way?

There's two definitions I found. The one I was thinking of just meant "harsh".

The other definition includes a racial inequality component. That was NOT what I was thinking of.

So yes, poor choice. Allow me to rephrase:

We need the people in Detroit to feel like the police are responsive and harsh when dealing with crime, instead of absent.

[FlyingJ]

Obama's going after female voters.
The only way he'd drive through Detroit is if the city brought in bus loads of white woman.

emphasis on woman VOTERS
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion..._on_women.html

[Zacha341]

Umm, I think the POTUS would want to distance himself from Shabazz just as he did not set a foot in Detroit during at the end of Kilpatricks run during the first election!

I suspect if his motorcade did go for any sort of stint in the distressed parts of Detroit proper [[or even downtown/midtown) the right-wing pundits would start harping that he's pandering to "unionists", "class warfare", "welfare interests", african-americans, etc... possibly run a clip of the Malik Shabazz rant, and much like the Hilary Rosen flap, there'd be a frenzied run by his advisors to "distance" himself, and in the meanwhile, avoid any substantive commentary on urban Detroit's challenges..

[firstandten]

Two things, all the President needs to do is walk a few blocks away from the WH and he can see everything he would see riding thru Detroit.

Also if you think that the President can wave his hand and get an urban agenda thru Congress don't really understand what a President can and cannot do especially given this political climate. Any kind of urban agenda that makes sense would need to be in the order of a Marshall Plan and that has a snowballs chance in July of happening.

[Hermod]

Two things, all the President needs to do is walk a few blocks away from the WH and he can see everything he would see riding thru Detroit.

Also if you think that the President can wave his hand and get an urban agenda thru Congress don't really understand what a President can and cannot do especially given this political climate. Any kind of urban agenda that makes sense would need to be in the order of a Marshall Plan and that has a snowballs chance in July of happening.

The "Marshall Plan" for the cities was tried back in the Great Society and did two things, it supported an army of bureaucrats and it got a lot of central cities torn down [[urban renewal).

[SWMAP]

true, hermod: it was a lot of money floating around then. And not so much to show for it now.

[Detroitnerd]

There's two definitions I found. The one I was thinking of just meant "harsh".

The other definition includes a racial inequality component. That was NOT what I was thinking of.

So yes, poor choice. Allow me to rephrase:

We need the people in Detroit to feel like the police are responsive and harsh when dealing with crime, instead of absent.

The thing is, the police aren't supposed to decide what punishment people get. That is the job of the judiciary. The only job of the police is to execute the enforcement of laws, not deal out beatings or harsh treatment.

I thought we learned that lesson with STRESS in the 1970s.

[Detroitnerd]

The "Marshall Plan" for the cities was tried back in the Great Society and did two things, it supported an army of bureaucrats and it got a lot of central cities torn down [[urban renewal).

The Great Society also ameliorated poverty in America. People were lifted out of poverty. That's why free market purists like to make fun of it, denigrate it and propagandize against it.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea....califano.html

[Novine]

The Detroit News is pushing for more federal spending in Detroit? Is that after the corporate and personal tax cuts that they've been pushing? Or after the social safety net gets downsized to pay for those tax cuts? Or is that after more military spending that Republicans want to see happen?

[TKshreve]

Pump all the money you want into Detroit. It won't solve shit. Mostly because it won't be allocated for what it was intended.