Original features of Detroit's grand old squares & parks

[Hermod]

All of these features in the parks require two things:

1. City employees competent to to maintain the plumbing and landscaping.
2. City employees to whom the word "work" is not a nasty four-letter word.

You don't get this with fifty years of "friends and family" hiring and staffing practices.

[canuck]

All of these features in the parks require two things:

1. City employees competent to to maintain the plumbing and landscaping.
2. City employees to whom the word "work" is not a nasty four-letter word.

You don't get this with fifty years of "friends and family" hiring and staffing practices.

Fifty years seems like an odd, even number, Hermod. What happened fifty years ago to prompt the change you mention?

Also, what was it like before?

[archfan]

All of these features in the parks require two things:

1. City employees competent to to maintain the plumbing and landscaping.
2. City employees to whom the word "work" is not a nasty four-letter word.

You don't get this with fifty years of "friends and family" hiring and staffing practices.

I think this has more to do with the cost of wages now vs. the 1910s. In the past, people power was cheaper. Even Henry Ford's vaunted $5 a day comes out to about $30K a year in today's dollars, and that was considered the pinnacle of pay scales. Most people worked for a lot less; the people mucking out fountains worked for way less.