Bing says rebuilding Detroit is 20-year task

[DetroitDad]

I was riding down 12th Street for several miles the other day for work, and it was strange, the MP3 player was on shuffle, and started playing "Where is the Love?", followed by What's Going On? It brought me back to what Buy American said in the "Lifting Detroit up Today... and Everyday" thread.

Sudden crisis precipitate change.

Slow crisis precipitate adaptation in what is acceptable.

We need to quit procrastinating [[me too) and work on the boring job of rooting out corruption in our city, state, and suburbs, and I don't think we have to drag our politicians out to Campus Martius for some vigilante justice to do it, but we do need to figure out what we want done, and hound [[and I mean HOUND relentlessly) our business and government leaders about why they aren't getting things fixed. We also need to watch these guys like hawks, and keep the news organizations on speed dial, along with the FBI, board of education, Lansing, and the local police departments.

Most of our projects are becoming failures because the reality is, to many of us are focusing on immediate problems [[restoring a build, building something, city beautification, opening a business, etc.), but this is not where the fight is, the fight is in city halls across the state.

Why aren't all of us at every school board meeting and council session? Why aren't suburbanites pounding on their leader's door and asking what they are doing to move toward regionalism, and vice verse. And when one side is approached by the other, we need to be clear that we want to work together with the other side, and except nothing else.

Detroiters alone, on the other hand, can not do this themselves, as much as some think we need to take responsibility, and I agree, we can't do as much as you think. The middle and upper class essentially abandoned Detroit and it was received by default to the bottoms of society, and the lower income, in many cases. These people have kids and ride the bus for several hours round trip, a couple hours every day to work at Great Lakes Crossing, Detroit Diesel, or twelve hour swing shifts at Guardian Glass.

A typical day for me, for example [[after all that positivity and trouble to get here), has me living in a old building, with a old car, and working nine to twelve hour shifts six days a week, paying more taxes and higher insurance sots. I like my work, but then, I have to come home and face the reality of not having a dishwasher, washing machines that I am not always sure will work, and cooking dinner. DetroitMom, so far has generally tended to the new baby, but does some things, like grocery shop and run errands, not to mention run a small e-shop, so I take care of all the basic chores.

I can't do a damn thing to help Detroit other than live here, and I know that my life is relatively easy compared to some of the things that other families are going through. I want to help the people around me, but I can't figure out how to help myself. I just can't seem to get it right.

Meanwhile, the Detroit government knows what it is doing. There are road blocks set up here for anything that you do. Why, for example, do they have their meetings during the day when all of the struggling residents are at work? Our suburbanites have their meetings at night, in many places. I'm not going to get to much more into this [[too long as is), but anything you do here will meet bizarre corruption that really prevents things from getting done.

What is going on indeed.