Proposal:In his first official act, the EMF makes the City Council position part-time

[Shollin]

Voters outside of detroit voted to repeal this very same law, and yet as quickly as it went, they just pass the same exact law going against the will of the people of the state.

[Detroitnerd]

You act like Detroiters are simply innocent victims, but they are not, life is a two way street.

You're quite right. It was foolish of them to be born poor, and for the city to have given away most of its jobs to the suburbs, and to have carelessly chosen to be a city in the first place during a 60-year stretch when subsidies flowed away from cities to suburbs. Those choices were all so short-sighted. It's a good thing life is a two-way street, though, because now the suburbs have been saddled with jobs, subsidies and residents of means. I know it's unfair to load all that on the suburbs, but, hey, somebody has to bear the brunt of all that.

[Shollin]

Hear we go again with this suburb nonsense.

[Detroitnerd]

Hear we go again with this suburb nonsense.

Sorry, Shollin. But whenever anybody points out how fucked the city is, and BLAMES the city for being fucked, I have to point out that all we did for the last 60-odd years was drain the city into the counties, to ever diminishing returns.

[aj3647]

I keep hearing voices that say Detroiters are all paranoid, overstating fears that an Emergency Manager is anything but a fair, impartial person who will bring fiscal sense to Detroit. That the issue at hand is not Republican white outstate Lansing wresting democratic control from a Democratic urban black stronghold. No, far be it from the truth. Nobody is after Detroit's jewels or out to humiliate its democratically elected leaders.

And, after hearing this, then you look at this message board and some of the postings on the Freep site and get quite another view: There is very clearly a multitude of white Republican outstate and suburban ax-grinders licking their salivating chops at the idea of humiliating Detroit's elected leaders and socking it to their old political enemies, be they blacks, unions, the public sector itself. How can you interpret some of these posts as anything but the product of a mob of chauvinistic foes sensing the kill is near, closing in and ready to glory in goring somebody else's ox and then gloating about it.

Not only is it disgusting, it's stupid. It's stupid because even as you're drooling all over this opportunity to settle the city's hash but for good, in the morning you're still going to blame the residents of Detroit for being suspicious of your motives. Uh ... duh ...

All very true, but then again, the same thing goes in the opposite direction too. Lots of open hatred and hostility towards white people and the suburbs from Detroit city "leaders", residents, and even from people here in this forum. That kind of thing is absolutely a two-way street, so please don't pretend like it only goes one way.

Also all those white suburbanites looking to get "revenge"...they have no input and no sway with the new EMF. He's black, and he's from DC, so why would he be beholden to white racists in Oakland County?

Let them foam at the mouth on the Freep comment section, who cares? They look just as retarded as when JoAnn Watson and Kwame Kenytatta and the Afro-centric Detroit leadership does whenever they trot out the race card to distract the masses from their own inherent failure at leadership.

[Shollin]

Sorry, Shollin. But whenever anybody points out how fucked the city is, and BLAMES the city for being fucked, I have to point out that all we did for the last 60-odd years was drain the city into the counties, to ever diminishing returns.

i like how you say drain the city as if Detroit paid for the suburban expansion and the suburbs don't pay taxes.

[Detroitnerd]

The feeling I get from a lot of Detroiters is suspicion, well-earned over decades. As for hostility toward the suburbs, I don't think there's as much of that as you may think.

The new EM may be black, but what does that prove? The state picked him, didn't it? Isn't he there to do the bidding dictated by the state?

[Detroitnerd]

i like how you say drain the city as if Detroit paid for the suburban expansion and the suburbs don't pay taxes.

Drain, pour, sluice, choose whatever word you want. It's like pouring a cup of coffee into a saucer and blaming the cup for being dry.

[Hermod]

Members of City Council needs assistants to work for constituents and review legislation. This is really just more "shrink the beast" rhetoric, AFAIC.

How many assistants did the nine council members have in 1950 when when the constituent load was 1.8 mill instead of 750,000? Could we use that as the baseline? I would be the council staff is at least three times what it was in 1950.

[Hypestyles]

I still have yet to hear much about folks running for the district-based seats.. Wonder what gives, besides the obvious..

how many signatures does it take to get on the ballot? Is it too late to try?

[Novine]

"i like how you say drain the city as if Detroit paid for the suburban expansion and the suburbs don't pay taxes."

Where do you think the money came from to pay for the roads and freeways that were extended into the suburbs? Farmers living on 160 acres? Detroit built the water and sewer plants that made suburban development possible. When the people left Detroit for the suburbs, they left a massive amount of infrastructure behind that the people and businesses that were left behind could never possibly pay to maintain. Detroit's leaders and residents have made many poor choices over the years but let's not act as if suburban expansion played no role in Detroit's downfall.

[Shollin]

"i like how you say drain the city as if Detroit paid for the suburban expansion and the suburbs don't pay taxes."

Where do you think the money came from to pay for the roads and freeways that were extended into the suburbs? Farmers living on 160 acres? Detroit built the water and sewer plants that made suburban development possible. When the people left Detroit for the suburbs, they left a massive amount of infrastructure behind that the people and businesses that were left behind could never possibly pay to maintain. Detroit's leaders and residents have made many poor choices over the years but let's not act as if suburban expansion played no role in Detroit's downfall.

Considering 75 and 94 were interstate highways, 90% of their funding was from the federal government and Detroit has more miles of freeway than any suburb. What paid for expansion into the suburbs possible, was GM and Chrysler moving into places like Warren and paying taxes.

[corktownyuppie]

The feeling I get from a lot of Detroiters is suspicion, well-earned over decades.

I think many need to understand that -- politically speaking, at least -- the constituents of Detroit are like a foster child that moves from foster home to foster home, with each one promising a better life and delivering disappointing results.

I mean, after your 4th alcoholic foster parent that beat you, you sort of lose hope that good ones even exist, right?

Now I'm actually very hopeful about the situation we have right now, and I understand that many will disagree. Disagree strongly. I guess that we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.

But I do think that people in the suburbs need to see that it's not always [[or even usually) an "anti-suburb" mentality, as much it is just a total and all-encompassing distrust of authority...especially governmental authority...having any ability to provide a better life.

I hope we can prove that to be wrong.

[Wesley Mouch]

"i like how you say drain the city as if Detroit paid for the suburban expansion and the suburbs don't pay taxes."

Where do you think the money came from to pay for the roads and freeways that were extended into the suburbs? Farmers living on 160 acres? Detroit built the water and sewer plants that made suburban development possible. When the people left Detroit for the suburbs, they left a massive amount of infrastructure behind that the people and businesses that were left behind could never possibly pay to maintain. Detroit's leaders and residents have made many poor choices over the years but let's not act as if suburban expansion played no role in Detroit's downfall.

Novine, I don't follow your logic here. In the early days of the suburbs, people leaving simply were making room for new residents arriving. Workers from down south. Solidiers returning from war. New infrastructure was created to meet the demand. [[Maybe not in the way you'd like, but Detroit was growing.)

There's a bit more truth to what you say for more recent times. But I don't follow why 'those left behind [[TLB) could never possibly pay to maintain'. I think you undervalue Detroit residents.

[Novine]

"Considering 75 and 94 were interstate highways, 90% of their funding was from the federal government and Detroit has more miles of freeway than any suburb. What paid for expansion into the suburbs possible, was GM and Chrysler moving into places like Warren and paying taxes."

Where do you think the federal government got its revenue? Farmers in Oakland and Macomb County? The development in Warren, Southfield, etc. would never have happened to the degree that it did if Detroit didn't have a water and sewer system that would could support the extension of utilities into the suburbs. I know you love the suburban myth of suburban residents pulling up their communities by the bootstraps unassisted by anyone but their own tax dollars. But it's nothing more than a myth and unsupported by the facts. Suburban development was largely subsidized and even today, the ability of suburban residents to flee the long-term obligations they created has helped contribute to the mess that exists in Detroit and inner-ring suburbs.

[Novine]

"There's a bit more truth to what you say for more recent times. But I don't follow why 'those left behind [[TLB) could never possibly pay to maintain'. I think you undervalue Detroit residents."

I don't undervalue Detroit residents. I'm looking at the reality of a city of 700,000 residents, many of them poor, trying to pay for the infrastructure of a city of 2 million residents, many who fled to the suburbs leaving the poorest to pick up the bill.

[Shollin]

"Considering 75 and 94 were interstate highways, 90% of their funding was from the federal government and Detroit has more miles of freeway than any suburb. What paid for expansion into the suburbs possible, was GM and Chrysler moving into places like Warren and paying taxes."

Where do you think the federal government got its revenue? Farmers in Oakland and Macomb County? The development in Warren, Southfield, etc. would never have happened to the degree that it did if Detroit didn't have a water and sewer system that would could support the extension of utilities into the suburbs. I know you love the suburban myth of suburban residents pulling up their communities by the bootstraps unassisted by anyone but their own tax dollars. But it's nothing more than a myth and unsupported by the facts. Suburban development was largely subsidized and even today, the ability of suburban residents to flee the long-term obligations they created has helped contribute to the mess that exists in Detroit and inner-ring suburbs.

I forgot, the federal government only got its revenue from Detroit Michigan. What facts have you provided that supported your tales of woe that once again poor Detroit was ruined by the same things that happened to every city in the United States of America, but only Detroit has truly suffered. Do you really think 4.5 million should live in the city borders? Where was the population expansion suppose to live? Detroit was busting at the seems in 1950. Were we suppose to shoehorn more people into Detroit? What neighborhood should we have bulldozed in the late 40's to build the GM tech center?

[Novine]

"I forgot, the federal government only got its revenue from Detroit Michigan."

Detoiters paid far more into the system than anyone in suburbia did but billions were spent in suburbia for new freeways and interchanges. Those are the facts.

"What facts have you provided that supported your tales of woe that once again poor Detroit was ruined by the same things that happened to every city in the United States of America, but only Detroit has truly suffered."

Wake up and look around. Almost every major urban center in the US has suffered to some degree the way that Detroit has. But some were able to capture suburban growth in a way that Detroit did not.

"Do you really think 4.5 million should live in the city borders? Where was the population expansion suppose to live?"

All of this is irrelevant to your claims which is to pretend that suburban development wasn't subsidized by the outflow of capital and revenue from Detroit to the benefit of the suburbs. Without Detroit's resources, suburban development never would have happened to the degree that it did. It also ignores the point that the exodus of people from Detroit allowed them to leave the liabilities of the city behind and then turn around and blame the people who stayed behind for failing to pick up that bill. I take it your the type who sticks the rest of the table with picking up the tip at the end of the meal.

[iheartthed]

I forgot, the federal government only got its revenue from Detroit Michigan. What facts have you provided that supported your tales of woe that once again poor Detroit was ruined by the same things that happened to every city in the United States of America, but only Detroit has truly suffered.

Before 1950, population contraction in large cities was something that had never happened in the United States. However, after 1950, all but one of the top 10 cities in the 1950 census had gone into population decline by the 1960 census -- if you look at the top 20 then 15 went into decline. And by 1970, 17 of the top 20 cities from the 1950 census had experienced some level of population decline.

But yeah, you may be right that this is all just a big coincidence. The tax money generated from city residents to build highways from the city centers out into the cornfields had nothing to do with most of America's cities going into population decline.

[Novine]

"I'd like to find a way to attract a better population of candidates. The DCC has been an embarassment and a circus for as long as I can remember."

This is the spew you get at the Freep or Detroit News comment sections. But the truth is that with the exception of a couple of outright crooks in Lonnie Bates and Monica Conyers and some celebrity wanna-bes like Martha Reeves, the majority of people who have served on CC over the past 30 years have generally been competent or at least have done what they thought was right for the city. Things were particularly bad in the last group but if you look back at those who have served, most of them weren't embarrassments to the city or the council.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_City_Council

[Shollin]

What's funny is a lot of Detroit's outer neighborhoods were built at the same time inner ring suburbs were built so it's not like Detroit was totally devoid of subsidies to expand, not to mention all the urban renewal subsidies Detroit was getting.

I never said cities didn't lose population. Quite the opposite. Cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston were able to manage the population loss. Only in Detroit did the city get totally ruined and people still blame the suburbs some 60 years later. Detroit's population was rapidly expanding. The population couldn't fit within the city limits. The out neighborhoods were built at the same time the inner suburbs were. If Detroit would've just annexed Eastpointe, Harper Woods etc. everything would be fine. It's kind of ironic though that a lot of the people left the core of Detroit and stopped in the outer neighborhoods before leaving Detroit all together.

[cman710]

While Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston have done a better job than Detroit of managing population loss, there are a bunch of other cities that have been eviscerated by population loss, too. Detroit may be the most extreme example, but it is not unique. Consider these other cities:

ST. LOUIS, MO

1950 Population - 856,796
2010 Population - 319,294

Percentage Loss - 62.7%

CLEVELAND, OH

1950 Population - 914,808
2010 Population - 396,815

Percentage Loss - 56.6%

BALTIMORE, MD

1950 Population - 939,024
2010 Population - 620,961

Percentage Loss - 33.9%

[Shollin]

Who is denying that cities lost population? The point is, most of those cities didn't become insolvent.

[Wesley Mouch]

"There's a bit more truth to what you say for more recent times. But I don't follow why 'those left behind [[TLB) could never possibly pay to maintain'. I think you undervalue Detroit residents."

I don't undervalue Detroit residents. I'm looking at the reality of a city of 700,000 residents, many of them poor, trying to pay for the infrastructure of a city of 2 million residents, many who fled to the suburbs leaving the poorest to pick up the bill.

You are completely right that this legacy is a burden. No doubt at all.

It isn't however the biggest problem Detroit was dealt.

The problem with Detroit isn't that it was handed a bad hand to play -- it sure was -- but the problem is that Detroit hasn't played what cards they have well.

[Honky Tonk]

You are completely right that this legacy is a burden. No doubt at all.

It isn't however the biggest problem Detroit was dealt.

The problem with Detroit isn't that it was handed a bad hand to play -- it sure was -- but the problem is that Detroit hasn't played what cards they have well.

Hell, it's STILL trying to figure out the game.....