What to do about Detroit? Your thoughts - Page 3 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

gatorblue92 · #31 03-24-2007, 12:51 AM

with the amount of deaths in the city due to murder i think we should pull out of Detroit entirely... thats what so many are calling for us to do in iraq so why not Detroit... or philly or new orleans?

Monomer · #32 03-24-2007, 01:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gatorblue92

with the amount of deaths in the city due to murder i think we should pull out of Detroit entirely... thats what so many are calling for us to do in iraq so why not Detroit... or philly or new orleans?

ugh, Detroit's crime rate isn't bad at all.

It's places like Warren you have to watch out for; Hamtramck even.

just about any city that has a vast array of low-income housing Is going to have a problem.

KylePavao · #33 03-24-2007, 02:10 AM

I agree that NYC had a strong center, but...

The issue with Detroit is the transition from manufacturing to something different. NYC hd the ability to do this, but I feel the only hope for them is to spur growth among high tech industries and ones that require less actual space (like google compared to an automobile manufacturing plant) and bring a middle class back to Detroit. The low property prices lend themselves to this, and companies like google and many others are moving into Detroit. The city has traditonally been based on manufacturing, but I wouldn't say it couldn't become a place for a new middle class to rise. Maybe I have an overly optimistic view for this city, but I feel it will be able to make the transition like many other cities have made, if it has proper leadership at the helm.

2k2s430 · #34 03-24-2007, 09:50 AM

Detroit hasn't been a manufacturing city for a long time. There may be a few small maufacturers left within the city limits, but for the most part many of the big plants left the city a long time ago. As for bringing the middle class back, I think that people really have an askewed image of Detroit. Detroit has a few historical districts Bostan Edison, Indian Village among others. New developments of McMansions are sprouting up in Detroit in 400 to 600 thousand dollar price range. People are buying. Manufacturing will probably never come back to the city. Redevlopment or rehabing of old manufacturing facilities is just to expensive and time consuming, economically it doesn't make sense for business. The biggest problem in Detroit is the city government. A few years ago Kwame laid off a good portion of the police force, now he wants to hire more officers. This man has been strickin with scandal after scandal. There was the stripper scandal at the mayoral mansion, the lincoln navigator scandal and not to mention he was never very smart about his image. This past week was the first time I saw him on the news without his earring and it a big freakin diamond one. City of Detroit doesb't elect officials it needs to, it elects officials it can relate to. The current mayor is a perfect example.

t walgamuth · #35 03-24-2007, 10:12 AM

maybe they should offer homesteading to the iraqis who would want to come to the us.

i bet they wouldn't be intimidated by the locals....especially if they are allowed to bring their AK 47s.

tom w

dlssmith · #36 03-24-2007, 04:05 PM

The answer is simple. Lower or completely eliminate the corporate income tax in Michigan, and cut the personal income tax rate drastically. You might see some changes in the state, but not until that happens. There are simply too many other places for businesses to locate that have lower tax rates - and warmer weather.

And when GM and Ford go belly up, which is coming sooner than later, the **** will really hit the fan in MI - well, and a lot of other places too.

davestlouis · #37 03-24-2007, 11:24 PM

Guys, Detroit isn't alone...the City of St. Louis actually surpassed Detroit as the most dangerous city in the US in a recent poll. The city schools are on the verge of being taken over by the state. The city has lost 1/2 of its population in the past 30 years. City gov't is almost impossible to deal with. I live in a suburb that was cornfields 30 years ago, and is now not even considered an outlying area, and I'm 35 miles from downtown.

I haven't actually stopped and spent any money in downtown St. Louis in 10 years, with the exception of one Cardinals game maybe 7-8 years ago. When I was a kid my grandma took me shopping downtown, we even rode a city bus...I would not even dream of hopping a bus now.

Unfortunately the whole crime problem isn't specific to the city limits...another mall shooting by some gang-affiliated teens at St. Clair Square today, and that's an Illinois suburb 20 miles from downtown near Scott AFB.

Hatterasguy · #38 03-24-2007, 11:51 PM

Hmm makes NY look good, you can walk around drunk all night and no one will bother you.

Maybe the great influx of people to the east and west coasts, as well as TX is causing this.

davestlouis · #39 03-25-2007, 12:13 AM

At least in the case of St. Louis, the population of the metro area is growing, but the people just keep moving farther and farther away into new homes in new ly-built-out subdivisions. Now the inner ring of suburbs around the city is dying too, as the malaise and crime is spreading from the city.

A lot of people around here blame public transit, specifically the light rail system, for making young urban youths mobile enough to bring their inner-city issues to the county.

At the heart of the problem is unemployed and underemployed young people with little parental guidance and control, who have no respect for the law. They rob, steal, shoot not just each other, but innocent people who aren't party to their entrepreneurial(spelling??) pharmaceutical dealings. One could argue that many parts of the City of St. Louis are lawless and many people don't choose to leave their comfortable suburbs and take the chance on something bad happening to them. Detroit, Cincinnati, I suspect most northern "rust belt" cities have similar issues.

davestlouis · #40 03-25-2007, 12:20 AM

I never cease to be amazed at the mothers and grandmothers of urban teens and young adults who get into scuffles with the law...the script is something along the lines of this:
1.he is/was a good kid
2.he doesn't/didn't own a gun
3.the police shouldn't have shot him, even though he pointed a gun at them

These same people will scream if the police don't come running when they call. They put the cops in an impossible situation, they want law enforcement, just not when their kids are involved.

If I had gotten in trouble with the law, my mother would have instantly taken the side of the boys in blue...I respected her, I respected the law, and was scared to death of the nuns at school, so I toed the line.

If people don't feel safe in the city they won't go there, and the lawlessness takes over...end of story and end of the city as a vibrant, viable community.

t walgamuth · #41 03-25-2007, 01:41 AM

a lot of folks seem to think that the flight to the suburbs in big cities came about as a result of court mandated bussing to achieve integrated schools.

folks move from place to place to obtain better schools for their kids.

we are very lucky here in lafayette and tippecanoe county to have three excellent school systems. lafayette, west lafayette and tippecanoe county.

we also have excellent private schools. but the excellence of the public schools has led to shrinking enrollment of central catholic over the last 20 years.

tom w

KylePavao · #42 03-25-2007, 02:58 AM

Dave,
I agree with you. I am only twenty one, but share a lot of the same values you grew up with (seemingly) long ago. There is a certain respect for the law, and a work ethic instilled. Parental guidance is definitely a major issue, especially when many of these parents (in the case of Detroit) have been layed off or lost their jobs. It's difficult for a mother or father to cope with the fact that they can't provide for their family. I don't have children, but I'd imagine coming to this realization is very difficult.
With this scenario permeating through Detroit, the city becomes a breeding gorund for criminal behavior. Especially if this is the only way to actually provide income.
So far, with the help of all of you, my thesis is playing out something like this, in very basice terms:
The problems occuring in Detroit= No Jobs.
Obviously getting jobs there is the actual problem, but it seems to be that one is needed to satisfy the other.

Regards,
Kyle

davestlouis · #43 03-25-2007, 09:49 AM

Kyle, let's face it, when people are gainfully employed, they tend to have less free time to get in trouble and/or create crime and other social ills. Making $8/hr working in a downtown hotel won't feed a family. High-paying industrial jobs are going away at an alarming rate. My issue is that there are a lot of people in American society who feel a sense of entitlement...like society owes them. I was always taught "God helps them that help themselves"...if you want something, go out bust your butt and earn it.

Let's say you are a 16 year old kid, living in a slum in the city. What is your way out? Sports is a bad bet, statistically impossible to take that route. Education seems remote, but I might argue that it's a cultural thing where the urban community doesn't value education of thinks it's effete. That leaves manual labor or taking the easy way out and getting into crime and gangs. Media and music make that sound awfully glamorous, so I see whay kids do it. If there ws a way to channel that drive into something positive, the inner city MIGHT spring back to life.

davestlouis · #44 03-25-2007, 09:58 AM

Tom W, court mandated bussing brought kids from the City into suburban districts here, and the kids were spread thinly enough that I believe in a lot of cases, they were treated as tokens and circus freaks: there just weren't enough of them and they didn't fit in, with style of dress and social manners.

If inner city school districts are producing whole generations of kids who are not prepared for college, that's a horrible failure, but the schools don't bear the whole blame...the broken family structure in urban African American families is a major cause. Not having 2 parents in the household is destructive: less money coming in, less time to actively parent the kids, no positive male role models. I'm irritated that society as a whole gets to deal with parental failures in these families. What can be done to get inner city people to parent their kids and make them young adults who value education, take a long view for career choices and want to contribute to society?

If the parents don't know where their kids are at 2 AM I suspect the cops do.

Larry Delor · #45 03-25-2007, 10:01 AM

They live in their own worlds in Detroit.
Some live in some fantasy world, where everything is fine as long as there is money in their account. Once they find their account empty, they will act surprised and ask who they can blame.
Many of them live in apathy...they just simply exist, trodding along day after day, no longer seeing that light at the end of the tunnel, but too stubborn to move, insisting that the light is there; for if they didn't insist it was there, they would admit how pathetic their existance really is.
The people in the suburbs need to be aware....they need to draw a line in the sand, and make themselves independant of Detroit and its auto related industry, and they need to do it double-time.
Or else, the whole thing is going to collapse upon itself.

Does anybody that remembers Coleman A. Young "Maer uh Deh-troy", know why he had to put his name on everything?? The Zoo in the city of Royal Oak, had his name on it. Putting signs with your name on them costs money - twice - once when they put the sign up, and again when they take it down after somebody new gets elected. Personally, I think that is money that could be used for something better. Nobody gives a crap who the mayor of detroit is, they haven't trusted that particular elected official in decades; a sign certainly isn't going to change that - if anything it will reinforce it.

I visited Detroit a few years ago, and was amazed at the amount of buildings that were empty - Hollywood could use the city as a set for a few sci-fi movies set in the near future. Wait until Oct. 30th, and they will get free pyrotechnics displays to boot.