Despair in Oakland County

[SteveJ]

Nobody is going to spin anything. Everyone acknowledges that the economy has hurt every county in the country. This is not a SE Michigan problem. Its a national problem.

[R8RBOB]

Nobody is going to spin anything. Everyone acknowledges that the economy has hurt every county in the country. This is not a SE Michigan problem. Its a national problem.

You are aware I was joking right about Brooks, right?

[corktownyuppie]

Nobody is going to spin anything. Everyone acknowledges that the economy has hurt every county in the country. This is not a SE Michigan problem. Its a national problem.

It's definitely a national problem. Obviously, we're all feeling it to different degrees, but it's not fun out there for everyone. Livonia, once coined "the Whitest City in America", has always been a bastion for conservative politics and generally been a fiscally healthy city. But there are neighborhoods there where real estate values have dropped by 40-50% since 2008.

2008 really screwed a lot of people, businesses, organizations, and people over. The only difference is that Detroit was already on shaky ground to begin with, having lost 20% of its population between 2000-2008. Then throw in the crash of 2008? It's a serious mess.

No, we all are going to need to each other to get through this. The only difference is that Detroit needs everyone else more. When you can only use 60% of your revenue on services -- and that number is shrinking, not growing -- you have a real problem.

[Novine]

I posted this on another thread in response to Bham1982s take on the situation. As mwilbert pointed out, it's like crowing over being in first class on the Titanic. Being the best county of a sinking region is not much to talk about.

"Pretty much everyone on this thread [[actually myself included) thinks Brooks is a buffoon, but his county has really been a model of success under his reign. I'm not sure that he had much to do with it, but Oakland is Michigan's economic engine, and is a model of conservative budgeting."

Economic engine of a ramshackle jalopy that's been lagging behind real growth areas for decades. I guess if you set the standards low enough, we'll beat them! In 10 years, the county added 8,000 people. That's it. The county seat, Pontiac, is under the control of an Emergency Financial Manager. Many of the county's older communities are struggling and even some newer communities lost population in the last census. The county government has had to cuts millions and shed workers because the countywide tax base has collapsed. We're hardly a model of economic success.

[corktownyuppie]

I posted this on another thread in response to Bham1982s take on the situation. As mwilbert pointed out, it's like crowing over being in first class on the Titanic. Being the best county of a sinking region is not much to talk about.

Exactly.

60 years ago, Detroit was one of the finance capitals of the world, with Detroit Bank & Trust, Manufacturers Bank, and other institutions known worldwide. We were major innovators back then...first we innovated mass production and then we innovated how to multiply our sales volume by inventing a way to lend money to purchase a depreciating asset.

It's 60 years later, and what are we innovating? When was the last time we've had an initial public offering from a company going public? Other cities are inventing new ways to communicate and network with computers and broadband. Our state suffers from an aging population where 20% of our citizens are functionally illiterate. Even outside the limits of the City of Detroit, the numbers are staggering:

Wayne County up to 36%, Macomb and Oakland at 13-15%. Many suburbs – including Pontiac [[34%), Inkster [[34%), Southfield [[24%) – have high rates. Across Michigan, one in three adults reads below a 6^th grade level.

So all of us need to be in "reinvention" mode. How do we continue to adapt to a changing marketplace? Well, it gets hard to invest in our future when we're still paying off the credit card bill for our past.

Either our legacy costs will need to be restructured, or we will have to wait for an entire generation to pass on before we can move forward.

Let's face it, while there will be individuals -- and even entire municipal units -- that have sizable wealth, Michigan is becoming a low-income, uneducated state. We are poor and dumb, having become accustomed to a way of living which once made us wealthy, but no longer does.

Good news is that we have the building blocks, natural resources, and institutions that can propel us to go forward.

[Danny]

Oakland County may be one of the wealthiest suburbs in State of Michigan. However it does have poor low-income areas and its growing. The biggest target for low-income growth and slow white middle class flight is in the inner ring suburbs. That includes Royal Oak Township, Oak Park, Lathrup Village, Southfield and Pontiac.

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map?hp

1. Srcoll down to Michigan

2. Click on the Click on the 'Largest ethnic/racial group fromfrom 2000.

3. Click on the 'Largest ethnic/racial group from 2010.

4. Ones shaded from dark to light green is the white population.

5. Ones shaded from dark to light blue is the black population.

6. Keep clicking those 'Largest racial-ethnic group start from the 2000 to 2010 a couple times and you will see the color change of racial flight from its inner ring suburbs.