Welcome to Detroit...

[fuzzykitten99]

this is too funny!

Full Article:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/OPINION03/604070340/1016/METRO05


if I really wanted to, I could get Tim's former co-worker to make a sign like this for Murderapolis, because the company manufactures road signs...hmmm the devil inside me is starting to wake up...

 

[waltky]

Lowest count since 1910...

Detroit population declines 25%
23 Mar.`11 — Detroit's population plunged 25% in the past decade to 713,777, the lowest count since 1910, four years before Henry Ford offered $5 a day to autoworkers, sparking a boom that quadrupled the Motor City's size in the first half of the 20th century.

According to 2010 Census figures released Tuesday, the city lost, on average, one resident every 22 minutes between 2000 and 2010. Detroit officials plan to challenge the figures. "Personally, I don't believe the number is accurate, and I don't believe it will stand up as we go through with our challenge," said Mayor Dave Bing, a Democrat. "The Census has a history of undercounting residents in urban cities like Detroit. We were undercounted in 2000, and the Census estimate was again revised in 2007," Bing said.

Demographers were less optimistic the city could get the figures changed. "You can talk about undercounts, but it's going to be very difficult to prove and they are going to have to go to the courts," said demographer Kurt Metzger, director of Data Drive Detroit, a non-profit data research firm. Census counts are crucial because the numbers are used to distribute more than $400 billion in federal funds to local and state governments each year and to make decisions about what community services to provide.

Fueled by the implosion of the domestic auto industry, the Motor City's 237,493-resident decline helped make Michigan the only state to experience a net population loss since 2000. Overall, the state's population fell by about 54,000, a 0.6% decline at a time when the nation's population grew about 9.7%. Michigan's population in the decade peaked in 2006 and has been declining since, according to Census figures. Metzger said he was shocked by Detroit's total — down from 951,270 in 2000 — saying he expected it to come in the 778,000 range.

He said a bad economy drove many people out, but so did falling home prices in the suburbs, which are now within reach of many lower-income Detroiters. Other issues such as schools, safety and insurance and tax rates, which are higher in Detroit than in the suburbs, also fueled the move. "They have chosen to vote with their feet," Metzger said. Detroit experienced a bigger population drop in the 1970s when it lost 310,695 residents, but that was a smaller percentage loss, about 20%.

MORE