Ooh, there was a sickening crime in Detroit ...

[Detroitnerd]

... and so Meddle is going to post it here.

It's kind of funny to watch, though. I believe I correctly understand the point. The point is that Detroit has more crime than its suburbs, more violent crime, and more extreme examples of crime. And so Meddle intends to make his point ... over and over again ... and over again ...

I brought in Frank Rizzo to discuss how such crimes make him feel the other day. I think Frank is a good example of a person to talk to about crime in Detroit because he loves talking about crime in Detroit. You could argue that if there weren't crime in Detroit, his split-level pad in Center Line wouldn't look so good. So he loves talking about how shiz is totally fuzzed up in Detroit.

And that's what they love showing on the TV news, right? If it bleeds, it leads. We're all used to this, right? When you watch the news, you're going to see three or four grisly crimes, police tape, interviews with bewildered neighbors, etc. This all reinforces that narrative, that Detroit is an awful place where awful things happen.

And, finally, of course, this is all largely true. The most disinvested neighborhoods, where there are few opportunities, let alone jobs, are caught in a vicious cycle of violence, poverty and general dysfunction. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure that out, right?

So why this relentless drumbeat of violent news on this forum? That's kind of curious, isn't it? It's not enough that the average suburban resident loves to talk about urban crime, it's not enough that every evening newscast begins with urban crime, it's not enough that even city boosters acknowledge urban crime is a problem ... we have to have several posts on this forum about urban crime every month.

So why is that? Why, as pockets of the city see investment and repopulation, and as that comes up for discussion here, must somebody post the utterly obvious again and again and again?

I think it's a kind of insecurity. I've seen it crop up in a few different contexts, usually where somebody is talking about how all these exciting things are happening in, say, Corktown or midtown or downtown or Woodbridge, and, invariably, a voice pipes up declaring that this is the exception, that Detroit is still fucked, that crime and schools are still serious problems, that Detroit has a long way to go before it is livable.

It's funny, man. Like, what other region would declare, over and over again, "You can't expect our central city to REALLY come back! Our central city is a HELLHOLE, and you're a FOOL if you think it will ever be better." But that's what we have, right? And, funnier still, even as parts of the city come back, the cries become more shrill and insistent, "But it's a HELL of CRIME and VIOLENCE! See? You SEE?" It's not bad enough that the region's urban center is full of problems, they have to play press agent for them.

Yeah, I think some people, frankly, are starting to crack. Their lifelong self-fulfilling prophecies are simply not coming true anymore. So they feel the need to skew the conversation their way by posting about crimes. It's funny, but kind of sad too. This is probably the last generation of chest-beating suburban triumphalists, and that's gotta be hard to let go of.

So, there's my analysis. Discuss.

[313WX]

What if you're of the belief that the region as a whole is a hellhole, not JUST the city OR the suburbs?

[mwilbert]

Most people want other people to agree with them. To the extent that the narrative moves towards Detroit's improvement, some of those people will try to shift that back toward whatever the crime or failure of the day is. I think the question is mostly one of balance--if all you do is bring up either the negatives or the positives, there is some question as to why anyone should pay attention. There isn't any point in looking at a stopped clock.

[downtownguy]

Several good points, nerd.

[Danny]

Most of the crime of Detroit are caused by black males, uneducated, not looking for jobs and don't want to take responsibility for anyone else.

[Wesley Mouch]

Most of the crime of Detroit are caused by black males, uneducated, not looking for jobs and don't want to take responsibility for anyone else.

Seems to be true -- so what can we do as a society?

I do believe that a general 'fixing' of Detroit is called for -- and fortunately is possible right now.

I support Charter Schools for this very reason. Good education is neede By Any Means Necessary.

[DetroitPlanner]

Seems to be true -- so what can we do as a society?

Fill the town with white hooligans?

[Detroitnerd]

Fill the town with white hooligans?

Hold out hope, DP: Opening Day is coming up.

[nain rouge]

I think you're on the right track. You've got to justify the long commutes and dreary, lifeless, gray, squat suburban environment somehow, and bashing Detroit is a great way to accomplish that. The idea that Detroit could have any culture or life frightens suburbanites because it confirms their worst fears, that life could be better, and that by screwing over Detroit they're actually screwing over their quality of life. They're the kind of people that vacation in big cities in America and abroad but associate everything bad with "the city" when they're back home. It's a constant state of denial that would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

[detmsp]

For as much as Detroiters like to be considered "tough", as a bunch, we sure are a thin-skinned, insecure bunch. Detroit is one of the most crime ridden cities in the country. People are going to talk about it. Deal with it. Crying about it and trying to sweep it under the rug with BS like "b-b-b-but chicago has violence too!" only serves to marginalize what is a serious and tragic quality of life issue for many residents.

[coracle]

See you've gone through a life-style change Frank. Instead of collecting shit you're writing it, pretending you're someone else again. It's a good choice for you as you're full of it and good at it.

[Dan Wesson]

Is there someone on this board that has multple personalties?

[Lowell]

Good post and rant Detroitnerd.

The real crisis of Detroit is of the soul of the metropolitan city as a whole. There is a poisonous immoral them-us mindset that has built a mental wall around the City of Detroit by many in the surrounding family of communities. It is as if Detroit was in some other metropolis, in some other state on another planet. "I don't go there, it's not my problem, I don't care."

Here is our portrait. There are no discernible borders and unless one knows geography even the Canadian side is part of the whole. The only borders are those of the mind.


The result of this us-them mindset is a disconnected self-centered sprawlopolis that hurts everybody. Labor cannot get to jobs because effective mass transit barely exist. The worst aspects of the metropolis get identified with the name Detroit and the regional brand suffers. The malaise of the City of Detroit spreads outward and populations of all cities surrounding Detroit and running of corridors like Woodward and Gratiot all experience population loss and decline.

What is needed is for all in our great international metropolis to have a conversion and see ourselves as one city, come together and share the bad and the good. Until then we are doomed to stagnation and division. How can we all get on the same page and cheer for one outcome like we do at a Tigers game?

[Detroitnerd]

For as much as Detroiters like to be considered "tough", as a bunch, we sure are a thin-skinned, insecure bunch. Detroit is one of the most crime ridden cities in the country. People are going to talk about it. Deal with it. Crying about it and trying to sweep it under the rug with BS like "b-b-b-but chicago has violence too!" only serves to marginalize what is a serious and tragic quality of life issue for many residents.

Yeah, um, I don't know where you're getting that on this thread. I think I pretty clearly admitted that violent crime is a problem in Detroit. What I'm trying to get at is what's driving some posters' incessant focus on violent crime in Detroit at the expense of everything else. I get the sense that these voices are the ones trying to sweep something under the rug, namely that, in certain neighborhoods, in certain ways, things are beginning to change in the city for the better. And this ongoing narrow and continual focus on crime seems to seek to drown out that discussion.

All big cities have violent crime. But not all big cities are surrounded by communities that damn the central city for its crime problems.

[Gistok]

I think you're on the right track. You've got to justify the long commutes and dreary, lifeless, gray, squat suburban environment somehow, and bashing Detroit is a great way to accomplish that. The idea that Detroit could have any culture or life frightens suburbanites because it confirms their worst fears, that life could be better, and that by screwing over Detroit they're actually screwing over their quality of life. They're the kind of people that vacation in big cities in America and abroad but associate everything bad with "the city" when they're back home. It's a constant state of denial that would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

OK... did it ever occur to you that not every suburbanite is a knuckle dragging red neck who lives in a variation of a Russian Gulag?

You're not helping Detroitnerd's case about Detroit bashing, by displaying the exact same tendencies, but against the suburbs...

[Detroitnerd]

OK... did it ever occur to you that not every suburbanite is a knuckle dragging red neck who lives in a variation of a Russian Gulag?

You're not helping Detroitnerd's case about Detroit bashing, by displaying the exact same tendencies, but against the suburbs...

I don't know about that. I think a lot of the city's most articulate criticisms of the suburbs are well-founded, if only because many of the people who call the city home HAVE lived in the suburbs at one time or another and found it dreary. Which, you must admit, is a bit different from somebody like my fictional Frank Rizzo, who prides himself on not crossing Eight Mile Road in 25 years.

[coracle]

I guess the 1.2 million that have already left [[far more than have stayed), and counting, would prefer to be dreary. They certainly didn't want to live in Detroit; and they are real people not your fictional straw men trumped up to make disparaging points.

[Detroitnerd]

I guess the 1.2 million that have already left [[more than have stayed), and counting, would prefer to be dreary. They certainly didn't want to live in Detroit; and they are real people not your fictional straw men trumped up to make disparaging points.

Look who's all hurt and huffy...

[coracle]

Look who's all hurt and huffy...

Yes, it's very difficult to argue against FACTS isn't it RIZZO? go write some shit.

[oladub]

The reality is that suburban whites would rather try to raise their kids in places where they can go to school, learn something, and then proceed to a career. They do not want to send their kids to schools where they get beat up and where standards are so low they won't learn much.

For all the people in Detroit, mostly black, who give it their all to make Detroit a better community, it is not enough. The bad guys still have too much power. What is needed are radical changes to end the crime problem. I remember reading that for awhile Black Muslims were policing one of the housing projects. Whatever they were doing seriously reduced the crime rate. Was it fear of consequences? I don't know but that is vigilantism which is discouraged by our legal system.

Back to 'radical'. From time to time, I suggest large 6,000-50,000 population gated communities in Detroit to reclaim Detroit 10-50 blocks at a time. That proposal always draws the ire of people who are so adverse to the word 'gated' that they seem to prefer squalid crime ridden streets where half the streetlights don't even work to jobs and tax revenue.

At the State and federal level, programs should encourage and reward doing things right. Sorry, but fatherless homes should not be subsidized and thus encouraged. Over half of all under age 30 births now, for all races, are to unmarried women. Children with live in fathers do much better. Teens who have to get past Dad to get out the door and are rewarded for doing things right within the family statistically do much better.

Also, and this is getting back to the temporary Black Muslim crime prevention story, there has been a spate of bad guys being gunned down in home break ins and carjackings lately. Since there just isn't money for good police protection in Detroit now, I wonder what would happen if everyone in a Detroit neighborhood with no recorded crimes in their families was provided with a self-defense weapon. If the bad guys had to consider that every fourth person or so might be packing, it might change their perceived risk/reward ratio.

[Lowell]

OK... did it ever occur to you that not every suburbanite is a knuckle dragging red neck who lives in a variation of a Russian Gulag?

You're not helping Detroitnerd's case about Detroit bashing, by displaying the exact same tendencies, but against the suburbs...

How about this?

Speak no evil of Detroit or of its suburbs.

Swallow the hurt and and turn that hurt energy toward mutually beneficial outcomes.

We get nowhere by tearing each other down except torn further apart.

[Detroitnerd]

You are drifting away from the premise of the original post, Oladub, which concerned not people moving out of the city, but people relentlessly harping on crime in the city, though a real problem it obviously is. I think there's a growing insecurity driving that.

Your proposed solutions don't really appeal to me at all, if I may say so.

[oladub]

You are drifting away from the premise of the original post, Oladub, which concerned not people moving out of the city, but people relentlessly harping on crime in the city, though a real problem it obviously is. I think there's a growing insecurity driving that.

Your proposed solutions don't really appeal to me at all, if I may say so.

I have no desire to regulate what you or anyone else, even suburbanites, say.

"People relentlessly harping on crime in the city" does relate to why suburbanites don't move to the City. I didn't expect that my ideas would appeal to you. I don't, on the other hand, expect that trying and hoping that things and attitudes that haven't worked will work if tried again.

I do have one addition to my list of 'radical' solutions: Our federal government should replace middle class income taxes, to the extent possible, with import taxes and incarcerate the cheating CEO's of companies like Tyson and Marriot who knowingly hire illegal aliens to undercut US workers' wages. If there was a demand for US workers, workers could demand higher wages. There would be more financial options for the unemployed now drawn to crime.

[coracle]

It's the rampant crime in the City Rizzo that you don't want people to talk about that feeds the growing insecurity and results in people leaving; and as you put it in your opening letter "It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure that out, right?" I guess if we want surgery on our rockets we will have to bite the bullet [[a bit of crime lingo) and come to the city.

[Detroitnerd]

I have no desire to regulate what you or anyone else, even suburbanites, say.

"People relentlessly harping on crime in the city" does relate to why suburbanites don't move to the City.

Yeah, um, that's also not what I was talking about. Not that I'm against what you have to say, but you might have the decency to start your own thread about your ideas and what you want to talk about ...