Cursing the candle - Gentrification in the rust belt

**hybridy** · December-20-17, 01:37 PM

How should we view the early signs of a turnaround in Detroit?

“Detroit’s problem is not inequality, it’s poverty…The city has a relatively high degree of equality at a very low level of income.”

•This considers two related questions about Detroit’s trajectory: Does the current positive image of Detroit reflect reality?; and, Will the recovery culminate in a new Detroit that will provide residents with a quality of life that is sustainable in the decades to come?

•While the record is complex, two major conclusions stand out: 1) on a number of measures, Detroit continues to decline and, even when positive change has occurred, growth has been much less robust than many narratives would suggest. 2) Within the city, recovery has been highly uneven, resulting in increasing inequality.

•The gap between Detroit’s core area [[Downtown and Midtown) and its neighborhoods is significant and increasing.

•Unless there is a significant commitment to improving education and job skills throughout Detroit, the gap between the core and neighborhoods will continue to widen.

**DetroiterOnTheWestCoast** · December-20-17, 10:14 PM

There will continue to be increasing inequality. Virtually every Republican policy encourages it.

**GPCharles** · December-21-17, 11:52 AM

Sure, it's all the Republican's fault. 50+ years of failed Democratic entitlement policies had/have nothing to do with it. How do you propose to put urban poor next to working folks? Legislate it? Good luck with that.

IMHO there is only one answer to reducing the inequality - Education, education, education. You have to be educated to be employable these days. The old high-paying brawn jobs are gone for good. But you have to be interested in being educated to get educated. You have to place a high personal and family value on education. As many school teachers have said [[W included), you can't teach someone that isn't there and you can't teach someone who doesn't care. It takes hard work by all involved in the process, including the students and their parents.

**DetroiterOnTheWestCoast** · December-21-17, 03:41 PM

Originally Posted by GPCharles

Sure, it's all the Republican's fault. 50+ years of failed Democratic entitlement policies had/have nothing to do with it. How do you propose to put urban poor next to working folks? Legislate it? Good luck with that.

IMHO there is only one answer to reducing the inequality - Education, education, education. You have to be educated to be employable these days. The old high-paying brawn jobs are gone for good. But you have to be interested in being educated to get educated. You have to place a high personal and family value on education. As many school teachers have said [[W included), you can't teach someone that isn't there and you can't teach someone who doesn't care. It takes hard work by all involved in the process, including the students and their parents.

. You seriously expect the GOP to increase the education budget? Now that Congress has decided to greatly increase the deficit, we all know what will be on the chopping block; i.e. anything that actually helps average folks.

**Wesley Mouch** · December-21-17, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by DetroiterOnTheWestCoast

. You seriously expect the GOP to increase the education budget? Now that Congress has decided to greatly increase the deficit, we all know what will be on the chopping block; i.e. anything that actually helps average folks.

GPCharles did not cite funding. He cited values. In spite of Moore, the Republicans maintain a more values-based platform, IMO.

Second, education is mostly locally funded.

Third, funding isn't the issue with education. Sure, money helps. But progress can be made with what the schools have now. [[And besides, more money will mostly only go to fund pensions for the next 20-30 years anyway. Even the beloved Democrats aren't gonna be able to fund much beyond pensions.)

**Bham1982** · December-21-17, 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

GPCharles did not cite funding. He cited values. In spite of Moore, the Republicans maintain a more values-based platform, IMO.

LOL. "Grab em in the p---y." Bomb the hell out of everyone and kill people by taking away their healthcare. Turn the White House into a rogues den of white supremacists, Russian toadies and gangsters. Endorse child rapists. Rip families apart. Call Neo Nazis "very fine people". Call immigrants "rapists and murderers". The "values platform"...

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

Second, education is mostly locally funded.

No. In Michigan, education is funded at the state level. Every district gets the same basic allocation. There's also heavy federal funding depending on student body. Local funding is largely irrelevant.

**iheartthed** · December-22-17, 02:20 AM

Originally Posted by GPCharles

Sure, it's all the Republican's fault. 50+ years of failed Democratic entitlement policies had/have nothing to do with it. How do you propose to put urban poor next to working folks? Legislate it? Good luck with that.

IMHO there is only one answer to reducing the inequality - Education, education, education. You have to be educated to be employable these days. The old high-paying brawn jobs are gone for good. But you have to be interested in being educated to get educated. You have to place a high personal and family value on education. As many school teachers have said [[W included), you can't teach someone that isn't there and you can't teach someone who doesn't care. It takes hard work by all involved in the process, including the students and their parents.

Not trying to tell you how to run your argument, but if I were you I would have pointed out that the cities where residents have been most adversely affected by gentrification are all liberal cities in blue states...

**Honky Tonk** · December-22-17, 07:39 AM

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Not trying to tell you how to run your argument, but if I were you I would have pointed out that the cities where residents have been most adversely affected by gentrification are all liberal cities in blue states...

Bill Clinton is a Democrat, Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, all the jobs left the country, hence creating the Rust Belt. Your turn.

**Shai_Hulud** · December-22-17, 08:56 AM

Originally Posted by Honky Tonk

Bill Clinton is a Democrat, Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, all the jobs left the country, hence creating the Rust Belt. Your turn.

This is false.

Manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 and lost more than 20% during the 80's. During the 90's the rate shrank to 14%. Productivity increased through all of it.

Maybe direct some of that animus toward St. Ronnie. Or, even better, accept the fact that those jobs are no longer done by humans, here or anywhere else, and are not coming back.

http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx...0S5/index.html

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...put-has-grown/

**Honky Tonk** · December-22-17, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by Shai_Hulud

This is false.

Manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 and lost more than 20% during the 80's. During the 90's the rate shrank to 14%. Productivity increased through all of it.

Maybe direct some of that animus toward St. Ronnie. Or, even better, accept the fact that those jobs are no longer done by humans, here or anywhere else, and are not coming back.

http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx...0S5/index.html

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...put-has-grown/

What percentage disappeared after NAFTA was signed? Funny how "humans" elsewhere seem to be doing them.

**emu steve** · December-21-17, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by hybridy

How should we view the early signs of a turnaround in Detroit?

•This considers two related questions about Detroit’s trajectory: Does the current positive image of Detroit reflect reality?; and, Will the recovery culminate in a new Detroit that will provide residents with a quality of life that is sustainable in the decades to come?

•While the record is complex, two major conclusions stand out: 1) on a number of measures, Detroit continues to decline and, even when positive change has occurred, growth has been much less robust than many narratives would suggest. 2) Within the city, recovery has been highly uneven, resulting in increasing inequality.

•The gap between Detroit’s core area [[Downtown and Midtown) and its neighborhoods is significant and increasing.

•Unless there is a significant commitment to improving education and job skills throughout Detroit, the gap between the core and neighborhoods will continue to widen.

Here is an article about gentrification in D.C. and its effects on public and charter schools.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...=.831db7b76ea9

There have been significant changes since D.C., once known as 'chocolate city' [[by some African Americans) has become more and more diverse as the population of Hispanics and whites has increased significantly.

D.C. is no longer an African American majority city [[it was 70% 25 years ago). Now it isn't an African American majority city.

The differences in D.C. and Detroit are stark.

D.C. was 70% African American in the early 1990s. Detroit today is over 80% African American [[per Wikipedia) but less than 50% in D.C.

Schools are slowly becoming less segregated.

As far as Detroit, it needs more and more neighborhoods to revive, becoming a mix of ethnicity, age, income groups, etc. be it in downtown, Midtown, Corktown, River front, etc.

**hybridy** · December-21-17, 12:26 PM

Agreed, the homogeneity [[income, education, race) of our inner cities is telling. Integration across all categories will only alleviate these issues. Our government can exacerbate/encourage these trends. It's evident what our mid-20th century administrations did, and its clear what our current administration is/is not doing.

Over the latter half for the 20th century, Michigan governors have experienced divided government with the other political power controlling at least one chamber in the Legislature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politi...3_1965_to_1999

**Bham1982** · December-21-17, 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by emu steve

Here is an article about gentrification in D.C. and its effects on public and charter schools.

DC has no relevance to Detroit. The capital of the most important empire in world history has nothing to do with Detroit.

And DC has tiny city limits so gentrification looks stronger than it is. If you took the overall regional core, including inner suburbs, there's still lots of poverty in the DC core.

DC is still a very black city, BTW. More blacks than whites, and almost no whites in the public schools.

**emu steve** · December-22-17, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

DC has no relevance to Detroit. The capital of the most important empire in world history has nothing to do with Detroit.

And DC has tiny city limits so gentrification looks stronger than it is. If you took the overall regional core, including inner suburbs, there's still lots of poverty in the DC core.

DC is still a very black city, BTW. More blacks than whites, and almost no whites in the public schools.

I'll repeat a point I've made many times.

Detroit and D.C. share an incredible amount of similarities, but D.C. is now about 20 or 25 years ahead of Detroit on its rebirth.

Detroit has the current mayor who is presiding over the rebirth. The D.C. Mayor was Anthony Williams, a financial guy, who took the district from financial disaster and turned it around and now D.C. is the how place to live in the metro area. Pls. go to 14th/U N.W. which was part of the 1968 riots and now the hot spot to live and play.

If someone is interested in a REAL history of the last two decades of D.C. history, pls. read this WaPo article. It isn't some 35,000 view of D.C. It is nuts and bolts understanding of the trans formative change taking place in D.C.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...=.1398056e955a

Please do not believe in the 90s that D.C. was heaven on earth. It was NOT. People turned around a governing disaster.

The hope is that Duggan is Detroit's version of Anthony Williams, a whiz, who is presiding over re-birth.

For Detroit, folks need to be patience and see what the city looks like in 10 -15 years. Detroit is only a few years beyond the bankruptcy and less than 10 from the Great Recession.

The story of Detroit's rebirth is in its first chapter. Many more yet to be written. And HQ2 could add many, many chapters.

**hybridy** · December-21-17, 12:25 PM

The other issue is the homogeneity [[income, education, race) of our inner cities. Integration across all categories will only alleviate these issues. Our government can exacerbate/encourage these trends. It's evident what our mid-20th century administrations have done, and its clear what our current administration is/is not doing.

Over the latter half for the 20th century, Michigan governors have experienced divided government with the other political power controlling at least one chamber in the Legislature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politi...3_1965_to_1999

**GPCharles** · December-22-17, 09:18 AM

In Michigan, education is funded at the state level. Every district gets the same basic allocation. There's also heavy federal funding depending on student body. Local funding is largely irrelevant.

Not according to my property tax bill. I pay a boatload of money to my local school board. Also, do a bit of research - each school district does not get the same amount of aid per student from the state.