The Real Reason the Once Great City of Detroit Came to Ruin

[Freewill]

The politics of Mayor Coleman Young drove out the white and black middle class.

As the city's government became increasingly less effective, whites and then middle-class blacks fled. "He left the city a fiscal and social wreck," the eminent political scientist James Q. Wilson wrote in a 1998 article in The New Republic, "The Closing of the American City."

Young was right that Detroit needed reform to deal with problems sparked by the migration of poor Southern blacks into the city in the 1950s. He and others, white and black, criticized the political power structure in Detroit, and especially its police department, as racially insensitive. The 1967 riots, sparked by a police raid on an after-hours club in a black neighborhood, generated legitimate calls for change.

Elected ostensibly as a reform mayor in 1973, however, Young made things worse. He divided the police department along racial lines, creating separate layoff lists of white and black officers. He and his handpicked police chief, William Hart, made clear that policing that resulted in too many arrests or citations in the black community would not be tolerated. "I wouldn't write tickets for black kids," one black officer told journalist Tamar Jacoby in her 1998 book "Someone Else's House: America's Unfinished Struggle for Integration."

BLACK REPUBLICAN: National Black Republican Association E-News: The Real Reason the Once Great City of Detroit Came to Ruin

Is this not exactly what we are seeing on a national level? A president incapable of uniting people. A president that thinks flooding the country with illegal poor is a great idea. A president that thinks expanding the welfare state is a really nifty idea.

 

[Google]

It is not just Detroit. Atlanta's school system is a joke. LA Unified and Chicago has some of the lowest test scores in the nation, despite spending the most. Violence, poverty, failure--those are the results of Democrat policies.

Wisconsin, among a few other red states, is flourishing. Its economy is roaring, there is a budget surplus and a balanced budget.

 

[Freewill]

It is not just Detroit. Atlanta's school system is a joke. LA Unified and Chicago has some of the lowest test scores in the nation, despite spending the most. Violence, poverty, failure--those are the results of Democrat policies.

Wisconsin, among a few other red states, is flourishing. Its economy is roaring, there is a budget surplus and a balanced budget.

What are we to do if we wish to fix the situation? Detroit was flooded with low educated, low income people. How do you turn that around? How do you turn around the education of children that come from low educated poor homes? Families with parents that barely can fend for themselves let alone their children. I guess what I am asking is how do we break the cycle? One method tried in Detroit was a failure and it seems we are trying the same thing in other places, as you point out, and nationally. I see no easy answer. But flooding the country with more low educated poor certainly isn't one.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

[What are we to do if we wish to fix the situation? Detroit was flooded with low educated, low income people. How do you turn that around? How do you turn around the education of children that come from low educated poor homes? Families with parents that barely can fend for themselves let alone their children. I guess what I am asking is how do we break the cycle? One method tried in Detroit was a failure and it seems we are trying the same thing in other places, as you point out, and nationally. I see no easy answer. But flooding the country with more low educated poor certainly isn't one.

HAHAHA. Stop with your "low-income people" euphemism. They are BLACK and that is the problem. They have 75ish IQs and a strong tendency towards crime. It's hopeless. When a city is mostly black it is finished.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

What happened to detroit is shows the value of states rights and city rights as opposed to the feds controlling everything. When a state or city is poorly run, taxpayers can vote with their feet and just leave. When the feds are in charge, there is nowhere to go.

 

[OnePercenter]

Actually Detroit's problem is four fold.

1. Reagan allowing the Japs to product dump.
2. The big three building CRAP for a number of years.
3. The slaughter of the middle class by Republicans through disproportionate income.
4. Old people not wanting to vote school bonds because their kids were already grown.

 

[rightwinger]

Capitalists used up Detroit and left when they were done

 

[The Rabbi]

Actually Detroit's problem is four fold.

1. Reagan allowing the Japs to product dump.
2. The big three building CRAP for a number of years.
3. The slaughter of the middle class by Republicans through disproportionate income.
4. Old people not wanting to vote school bonds because their kids were already grown.

That's the dumbest post you've made yet.

There is a vibrant auto industry in the US. It just isnt in Detroit.
Detroit was mismanaged by blacks for years, and received generous federal funds for years. The feds wouldn't prosecute corruption because it was a black Dem city.

You look at Pittsburg and you see what happens when responsible leadership runs a city.

 

[The Rabbi]

Capitalists used up Detroit and left when they were done

So where did they go next? Austin, TX? Miami, FL? Why is it no other city run by white people ever experienced what Detroit did?

 

[OnePercenter]

Actually Detroit's problem is four fold.

1. Reagan allowing the Japs to product dump.
2. The big three building CRAP for a number of years.
3. The slaughter of the middle class by Republicans through disproportionate income.
4. Old people not wanting to vote school bonds because their kids were already grown.

That's the dumbest post you've made yet.

There is a vibrant auto industry in the US. It just isnt in Detroit.
Detroit was mismanaged by blacks for years, and received generous federal funds for years. The feds wouldn't prosecute corruption because it was a black Dem city.

You look at Pittsburg and you see what happens when responsible leadership runs a city.

The Pittsburgh steel industry that was decimated by Jap dumping?

 

[OnePercenter]

Capitalists used up Detroit and left when they were done

So where did they go next? Austin, TX? Miami, FL? Why is it no other city run by white people ever experienced what Detroit did?

What about Vegas where the majority of people worked for or provided support for one industry?

 

[HelenaHandbag]

Actually Detroit's problem is four fold.

1. Reagan allowing the Japs to product dump.
2. The big three building CRAP for a number of years.
3. The slaughter of the middle class by Republicans through disproportionate income.
4. Old people not wanting to vote school bonds because their kids were already grown.

That's the dumbest post you've made yet.

There is a vibrant auto industry in the US. It just isnt in Detroit.
Detroit was mismanaged by blacks for years, and received generous federal funds for years. The feds wouldn't prosecute corruption because it was a black Dem city.

You look at Pittsburg and you see what happens when responsible leadership runs a city.

The Pittsburgh steel industry that was decimated by Jap dumping?

Yet they thrive today.

Good on them that they didn't sit around and whine.

 

[AvgGuyIA]

The politics of Mayor Coleman Young drove out the white and black middle class.

As the city's government became increasingly less effective, whites and then middle-class blacks fled. "He left the city a fiscal and social wreck," the eminent political scientist James Q. Wilson wrote in a 1998 article in The New Republic, "The Closing of the American City."

Young was right that Detroit needed reform to deal with problems sparked by the migration of poor Southern blacks into the city in the 1950s. He and others, white and black, criticized the political power structure in Detroit, and especially its police department, as racially insensitive. The 1967 riots, sparked by a police raid on an after-hours club in a black neighborhood, generated legitimate calls for change.

Elected ostensibly as a reform mayor in 1973, however, Young made things worse. He divided the police department along racial lines, creating separate layoff lists of white and black officers. He and his handpicked police chief, William Hart, made clear that policing that resulted in too many arrests or citations in the black community would not be tolerated. "I wouldn't write tickets for black kids," one black officer told journalist Tamar Jacoby in her 1998 book "Someone Else's House: America's Unfinished Struggle for Integration."

BLACK REPUBLICAN: National Black Republican Association E-News: The Real Reason the Once Great City of Detroit Came to Ruin

Is this not exactly what we are seeing on a national level? A president incapable of uniting people. A president that thinks flooding the country with illegal poor is a great idea. A president that thinks expanding the welfare state is a really nifty idea.

In a word: Democrats.

That's undeniable.

 

[OnePercenter]

That's the dumbest post you've made yet.

There is a vibrant auto industry in the US. It just isnt in Detroit.
Detroit was mismanaged by blacks for years, and received generous federal funds for years. The feds wouldn't prosecute corruption because it was a black Dem city.

You look at Pittsburg and you see what happens when responsible leadership runs a city.

The Pittsburgh steel industry that was decimated by Jap dumping?

Yet they thrive today.

Good on them that they didn't sit around and whine.

Thrive isn't the word I'd use. Half the population from 1950 to 2010. The city ranked number 12 in 1950, and 61 in 2010.

 

[dcraelin]

Actually Detroit's problem is four fold.

1. Reagan allowing the Japs to product dump.
2. The big three building CRAP for a number of years.
3. The slaughter of the middle class by Republicans through disproportionate income.
4. Old people not wanting to vote school bonds because their kids were already grown.

I agree with the first 3, but if Detroit is like most communities regarding schools, they paid more attention to the buildings than the kids. Contractors and developers milk the taxpayer in excessive bond issues.

Detroit is really the canary in the coal mine....it shows the way that all of America is going if we cant weed out the corruption....and the "free trade" ideology that says its ok to exploit workers.

 

[Zander]

Detroit is a laboratory for liberalism.

 

[HelenaHandbag]

The Pittsburgh steel industry that was decimated by Jap dumping?

Yet they thrive today.

Good on them that they didn't sit around and whine.

Thrive isn't the word I'd use. Half the population from 1950 to 2010. The city ranked number 12 in 1950, and 61 in 2010.

How are they doing compared to Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA or Bessemer AL?

 

[dcraelin]

Detroit is a laboratory for liberalism.

If by liberalism you mean the European kind, such as the Party in England that is in a coalition with the Torys...then you've got a bit of a point.

but in America liberalism and conservatism, "Republicans" and "Democrats" are just names for the pens they put the sheep into.

Corruption by our political and business "leaders" is the problem.

 

[thereisnospoon]

It is not just Detroit. Atlanta's school system is a joke. LA Unified and Chicago has some of the lowest test scores in the nation, despite spending the most. Violence, poverty, failure--those are the results of Democrat policies.

Wisconsin, among a few other red states, is flourishing. Its economy is roaring, there is a budget surplus and a balanced budget.

What are we to do if we wish to fix the situation? Detroit was flooded with low educated, low income people. How do you turn that around? How do you turn around the education of children that come from low educated poor homes? Families with parents that barely can fend for themselves let alone their children. I guess what I am asking is how do we break the cycle? One method tried in Detroit was a failure and it seems we are trying the same thing in other places, as you point out, and nationally. I see no easy answer. But flooding the country with more low educated poor certainly isn't one.

The solution is the same as it would be anywhere. One person at a time.
That's how the cycle is broken.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Actually Detroit's problem is four fold.

1. Reagan allowing the Japs to product dump.
2. The big three building CRAP for a number of years.
3. The slaughter of the middle class by Republicans through disproportionate income.
4. Old people not wanting to vote school bonds because their kids were already grown.

1. Oh please..First, you can be sure your racism makes you look ignorant....Product dump?
How is it product dumping when the import is better that the domestic model.
And here's the deal genius..For there to be a market there has to be a seller and a buyer. The American car buyer became disillusioned with the products Detroit was sending out, so they took to the alternatives. Short of absolute protectionist policies, which BTW cause everyone to lose, sales of imported goods is inevitable. The way to defeat imports is for domestic firms to make it better and less expensively than the other guys..
Oh, I wonder why it is no one ever says a word about European Imported goods.
2. Spot on....Which cause 1.
3...HUH?.....I'm middle class and I am quite intact. And given the fact that you are able to type, so to are you intact.....
Let's face it, you people equate 'middle class' to mean High school educated unionized factory worker. Newsflash. Manufacturing HAD to change in order to compete in global marketplace. We had to adapt or die. That meant modernizing or building new plants with modern technology that reduced the need for labor. It also increased the need for more highly educated and skilled people to operate and maintain equipment.
4, School bond issues? They pass all the time. And in many cases the money never gets used to exercise the prime objective...Achievement. For a long time it has been the policy of educrats to throw money at all problems. For a long time that has proved out to be a failing policy. Yet, certain political factions cry "it's for the children" in order to guilt people into voting for huge bind issues. Well, the taxpayers are tapped out. They are demanding accountability. They've had enough of school boards and politicians demanding money and offering no results in return..
No, the problem is not the old people or anyone else for that matter who votes down school bond issues. It is the system and those in charge of education who are to blame.