Detroit

[ReluctantSamurai]

Detroit is not the only city in Michigan or in the US to file for bankruptcy (just the most visible, at the moment):

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/mu...-defaults.html

Or the only Michigan city in dire financial straits:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...ontiac-detroit

And for those of you who think the suburbs here are much better off financially should look into the situations of Lincoln Park and Allen Park...one has already disbanded its' full-time fire department and the other is considering it. Both are beset by financial difficulties that also has them closing schools and considering bankruptcy.

A previous poster noted that Michigan is basically a one-trick pony, the auto industry, and there-in lies a huge reason for Detroit's and Michigan's problems as a whole. When the US auto industry gets decimated by international competition, and moves plants (and thereby jobs) out-of-state, the trickle-down effect on the local economy (steel, chemical, plastics, etc) is fatal.

And for those who think that the entire city of Detroit is one huge war-zone...you need to spend some time with Google Maps. I just bought a home on the east side (East English Village), in a predominantly black neighborhood, and I can tell you that this neighborhood is as well maintained as any Downriver neighborhood I have seen or the one I currently live in.

Using race as the scapegoat for ALL of Detroit's problems is short-sighted and out of touch with reality.

[rvg]

And for those who think that the entire city of Detroit is one huge war-zone...you need to spend some time with Google Maps.

Last year when I was bussed to Belle Isle for the Indy Race, the neighborhoods we drove through looked very war-zony to me: skeletons of abandoned buildings, entire neighborhoods boarded up, parking lots fenced in with barbed wire, brrr... Let's just say I'm glad I live in the burbs.

I just bought a home on the east side (East Indian Village), in a predominantly black neighborhood, and I can tell you that this neighborhood is as well maintained as any Downriver neighborhood I have seen or the one I currently live in.

Oh, I'm sure there are well maintained neighborhoods beside the Grosse Point, but they are the exception, not the rule.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Oh, I'm sure there are well maintained neighborhoods beside the Grosse Point, but they are the exception, not the rule.

I would differ with that, based on the two months I just spent driving through Detroit neighborhoods while looking at homes. Yes, there certainly are areas that could be used as sets for any of the new post-apocalypse shows now on TV (is there any major metro area in the world that doesn't have areas like this?), but there are many where folks care about their homes and their neighborhood.

[rvg]

Just sayin', Detroit is NOT an example of a thriving successful city. It's anything but. One can find a few healthy grains of wheat in that pile of manure, but it's still mostly manure.

[ReluctantSamurai]

....and manure makes great fertilizer when planted with new seeds

And just out of curiosity, why don't any of these cities get a topic?

http://alizul2.blogspot.de/2012/11/1...-in-world.html

[Fisherking]

They are lumped together here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...?144866-1-in-7 1 in 7 down the page some where.

I posted that same link a couple of days ago. But they actually refer to neighborhoods rather than the whole city.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I know...I read through the topic...that's where I copied your link from

My point is...Detroit because it's easy to rant about unions, racism, etc., and because Detroit's bankruptcy is headline news, at the moment.

But most of the cities in that list look to me to be much, much worse