Louis Aguilar [[Detnews) Provides Ammo To Those Who Fight Back Against Detroit Trolls

[emu steve]

Some of this is explainable with behavior finance.

Imagine you have $10,000 in an investment.
2008 happens, and you see the investment drop from $10,000 down to $5,000,
The following year you see a 50% gain...you go from $5,000 to $7,500.
The following year you see a 20% gain...you go from $7,500 to $9,000.

One person says, "holy sh**, a 50% gain and then a 20% gain back-to-back?? Those are record-breaking numbers!!"

The investor replies and says, "Yeah, well I had $10,000 three years ago and I'm still not back to even, so I'm still pissed."

A few laws of human behavior when it comes to money:
- We feel losses more intensely than we feel gains.
- Everyone compares their current state to whatever was their "personal best" or "all-time high".
- People compare themselves to the people around them.

And, thus, here we are.

Of course, the past is past. The only thing we can be concerned about is continuing to push he ball forward. Some people will never get back to their all-time high in Detroit. Others will see it, but it may take the rest of their life. We can't turn back the clock, and in some ways we shouldn't want to. And while we are seeing gains, they don't get to spread to everyone equally and simultaneously.

You know the American economy has been growing for 7 years straight? I know engineers at Apple that have gotten $80,000 bonuses 5 years in a row.

But tell that to the displaced factory worker who took a job for half the pay no raises for 7-years straight.

So, that's Detroit. All the perspectives are right. It's all very relative, and your opinion is very much informed by what's happening in your specific portion of the 144-square-mile behemoth that is this wonderful city.

Very well written.

I've had for years my 'theory of wealth and happiness':

Two hypothetical people:

One has 300K in the stock market and loses 100K but has 200K left.

The other had 100K in the market and made 50K for a new total of 150K.

Which one is 'happier'?

My theory and this poster would both agree the person who went from 100K to 150K feels better although the one with 200K is 'objectively' better off.

To draw this to Detroit:

The neighborhoods are like those who had 300K and lost 1/3.

Downtown, midtown, etc. are like those who went from 100K --> 150K.

[mwilbert]

Or they're old enough to remember and experience Detroit [[as in the entire city proper) from about 1945 to circa 1985.

To counter mwilbert's comment, I'm pretty sure Detroiters in 1985 would also be shocked and label you as being negative and blasphemous if you told them the city's neighborhoods would have so much crumbling infrastructure and look like bombed-out ghost towns, even many suburbanites.

I don't know if you are old enough to remember 1985, but I am, and I'm pretty sure people wouldn't have been even been surprised, much less shocked. They might well have been surprised at the speed and size of the population decline, [[black flight was not as pronounced back then), and the consequent speed of abandonment, but the direction was obvious, and there were already plenty of neighborhoods in serious distress.

[emu steve]

I'd suggest a couple measure which might measure the vitality and growth or decline of Detroit [[city):

1). Obviously, population. It is hard to make the case that a city losing a lot of population is 'healthy.'

2). Number of occupied housing units. This number might capture the increasing [[hopefully) number of one and two person households moving into downtown, Midtown, and other neighborhoods showing vitality.

3). CBD employment. Employers moving to downtown or expanding their employment there. Downtown/CBD employment captures a lot of high wage employment such as headquarter employees.

4). Tax revenues. Tax revenues increase in good times and decrease in bad so it is cyclical but there should also be a trend, either up or down [[adjusted for inflation).

5). New building permits issued. This is a leading indicator of things to come in terms of
population.

6). Maybe some data on assess real estate valuation or median price of home sales.

I'd love to see say 10 years worth of tax revenues and the story it tells.