Root cause of problems?

[gameguy56]

The ROOT cause is one word. Greed.

People want what they don't have. Some earn it and get it legally. Others do it via fraud and corruption or legal wrangling [[aka big business). Others just go out and take it, by force if necessary.

Everything mentioned up-thread is a symptom of people doing whatever they feel they need to do to enable getting more of whatever they don't have.

I think this is about as close to a correct answer as you can get. 'Greed is good' utterly destroyed Detroit. The race for lower taxes gutted the big cities and left a big hole. In other cities in the country though you still had a significant population that were dedicated, no matter the marginal $$ cost, to their cities and their institutions.

Detroit never had that. Very few people with any capital were committed south of 8 mile [[at least, historically). Nobody cared. Chrysler moved, LTU moved, hundreds of companies moved. Utopia was just a few mile roads away so who gives a damn.