Quote Originally Posted by DetroitPole View Post
Therein lies the problem. A city needs to be a great place to live. For forty years they've been treating the city like it's a goddamn amusement park. That isn't how a city works, unfortunately.
I can't speak to the last 40 years, but I don't see the city trying to be an amusement park. I see it trying to change from a dying industrial-based economy to a growing knowledge-based economy.

I think workers from both fields have things in common. They want:
- safety
- jobs
- convenience
- good schools

But, there are also differences:

- Knowledge workers tend to trend younger.
- College degree almost always...many with advanced degrees.
- High career variability, job change is the norm
- Commuting long distance or even by plane is common

I think Detroit is trying to transform into a city that attracts those kinds of people. The problem is that the transformation, like all transformations, is painful as hell. And it's really shitty time to do it. It would've been easier to do it gradually over 40 years, but in the past 3 years we've a total shift in labor/management dynamics, paradigms shifting about city services, and even a cultural movement away from suburbanism toward walkable urban areas. And that's not just in Detroit, but it's all over.

How we balance shifting toward the new viable solutions while not screwing over those were invested in the old ways is just really, really, really difficult. And while I can't speak to whether or not we're doing a good job with that balance, I do know that rarely can any one person see the entire field at the same time long enough to properly analyze how we're doing.

It's shitty for people right now, and that's inevitable -- not to mention worth our empathy and concern. The question is whether or not the price we're paying in austerity is driving us something more sustainable in the long run.

Personally, I think yes. But that's easy for me to say, because I'm not the one suffering through the process. So I temper my opinions and defer to those who can see the whole thing at once.