"I convinced a local to give me the 'ruins porn' tour."
ADDED: That comic got me interested in finding some photos of the Heidelberg Project. I recommend this (and then click the "older" button for more).
January 3, 2013
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58 comments:
We out to preserve Detroit in its current state as a sort of museum exhibit of what happens to vibrant economies when the blue model is fully implimented.
or check out "Abandoned Detroit Houses" on Google
We already did one today, and are you just skipping B and C?
I thought Choomie saved the Motor City with his auto bailout.
Detroit, the Moocher City.
Watch Albania in the future. The Italians are pouring money into the coastal areas. Ive heard they have very nice beaches and islands.
I've not been to Albania but Croatia is very nice. Croatia has very nice a very nice rustic farm feel and ok beaches (rocky).
Oops wrong thread.
Don't watch Detroit. It doesn't have a future.
That's not what all those Chrysler commercials tell me. I mean they've got black choirs on rooftops and Eminem.
Rome is the only monument left of Rome, And only Rome vanquished Rome.
-Joachim du Bellay
Folks...first off, Eminem is NOT from Detroit. That was just some bullshit in a movie, that was 98.78% bullshit.
Today, as of right now, the only places that are improving here are doing so with private sector investment. Go figure.
Many "natives" [only 25% of which graduate high school] object to "Gentrification" like the pricey zone downtown where my daughter lives. Funny thing about that, among the "gentry" there is no strife over race, color, religion, and it is a mixed lot. There is a remote chance the university and city environment of my last 5 years of college at night may return.
But I'm not holding my breath. Smart people all have CPL's too.
The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village are worth seeing. But those are in Dearborn.
What is so distressing is how easy it would be to fix Detroit. If not for the culture there, it would be a very attractive destination for business. I could move my company there and buy every employee their own home for less than the cost of the equipment moving bill. Thousands of unemployed workers available, who could live well there on competitive wages, and add tons of tax revenue for the government and infrastructure again. Once started and if left alone, a rebirth would be unstoppable, and would spread prosperity like a plague.
It's a damned shame. If the leftist chant of "shame, shame shame" ever fit anywhere, it is in Detroit and with the powers there who feed on lies.
"CPL"? = Center for Progressive Leadership?
"and would spread prosperity like a plague"
Currently a violation of Krugman Law 12c and Obamacare section 452.
As for the City of Detroit itself, until the Common Council is cleaned out, nothing good can happen on a city wide scale. It almost begs, logically, for the state to take over everything for a couple of years.
For my money, privatize everything except police and fire (return them to competitive wages, proactive staffing levels, and fund their pensions)...no more hundreds of asshole clerks in a huge marble edifice call the City County Building.
Good god, these days they can barely pay for police and fire, with another 20% cut recently. Actually, they don't pay a competitive wage for police and fire anymore...those remaining are captives of their pensions....which are horribly underfunded by direct city malfeasance and union screw ups. Trust me, the l-a-s-t thing Detroit should be cutting is Police & fire.
Meantime, there are parts of the city being reborn...but I recommend you carry a concealed sidearm at all times. You gert used to it after a while.
bagoh20 ...sorry about that acronym ":-) In Michigan a CPL is reference to "Concealed Pistol Law" permits for concealed carry of a side arm.
It is a good law, since it is a "shall issue" act (barring criminal or mental history) but has multiple Catch-22 features. You cannot enter "gun free zones" and you cannot store the weapon in your unattended car unless locked in a case in the trunk, with ammo secured separately. Even that is iffy. One needs to keep the business card of a Concealed Weapon Defense Attorney handy....they actually passed them out at the 12 hour CPL class my daughter took...8 hours class, 4 hours range time. She shoots targets regularly with me on weekend now, so has hundreds of hours on the range.
I've just returned from Tanzania.
It's 99.98% black, and they all turn an open hand to the pale-faces.
Instead of Escape from New York, it should have been Escape from Detroit. The place needs a wall built around it and then nuked with whoever is left inside. Wait 100k years, then let's start over.
In the long run, it may be better to set someone up as a latter-day Marcus Garvey. Obama can lay out the benjamins to a willing host country and set each emigre up with, say, a cool $100,000 as walking around money when they get wherever they are going as long as they agree not to come back.
Aridog
I was really hoping it meant Cyberathlete Professional League (Gaming) because that's what I found when I Googled it.
It sounds like a person who's really good at pretending to be active while sitting down.
The democrat party's America. Of course, they will blame others.
When powerful unions suck it all dry. You get De:toilet.
Sorry, anyone who refers to the Joe Louis Arena as one of the "glittery new sports complexes" either doesn't know a thing, or hopes that you don't. The Joe was built in 1979 and is crumbling just as much as any other edifice in Detroit (Sucks!).
Well, considering the weather in Detroit, and the middle area of the country, this does make a certain amount of SAD sense.
Too many clouds, not enough clarifying sunlight shining through clean windows helping to purify the soul day in and day out.
Rome reminds me of a man who lives by exhibiting to travellers his grandmother’s corpse.
~James Joyce (in a letter to his brother Stanislaus)
OT,
Ann, for a great Drudgetuxposition, check out his current middle column.
Bagge's cartoon is about 95% on the money accurate. Where he goes astray is his subtitle. It has yet to be shown that socioeconomic blight that is afflicts Detroit is an unintended consequence.
I thought Granholm, Kwami K-Pat and Barack had turn Detroit and Michigan around with job training, green energy and the auto bailout, a virtual workers' paradise.
Methadras said...
Instead of Escape from New York, it should have been Escape from Detroit...
Really? I suspect you are unfamiliar with either one at the ghetto street level. New York is 10 times the sewer Detroit ever could be...look up who sucks up the most federal dollars.
Gary, Indiana is a similar ghost-town shithole hell on earth.
Ah, observe the wonder of what happens when black people are put in charge!
And we wonder why we have 8% unemployment and $3.50 gas and embassies in flames?
Enjoy the decline, shitheads!
whores
You have got to go.
Heartbreaking photos. These were the neighborhoods that my grandparents aspired to when they came to Detroit in the 1890's. It was one of the most vital places in America, even before the auto boom. My grandparents, aunts and uncles lived at many different addresses between 1890 and 1930, which I have tracked. Many of the places they lived are now vacant lots. A few were buried by freeways. None are occupied by humans anymore.
I worked with an African-American copper who was visiting family in Gary. His dad told him to park his car in the garage. While moving his car from the street to the garage in the alley he got involved in a gunfight (which he won) This was in 1986.
My parents took me to Detroit in 1959. It was far more impressive than Milwaukee with fabulous architecture. We went home across Michigan on one of the first interstates and then caught the Milwaukee Clipper at Muskegon.
What a difference half a century makes.
Detroit is what happens when people who think like Rev Jeremiah Wright are put in charge of government. And when people who see what is happening are cowed into thinking criticizing the bad leadership sounds racist.
@wyo sis:
Truth hurts, doesn't it, lefty bitch?
Fact: Putting black people in charge of a place results in ruin, violence, devastation, and destruction.
Fact: We are headed towards ruin because crud like you put a black person in charge.
Fact: you cannot erase these truths with p.c. shunning, propaganda, and attempts to silence (nicely done, btw, very George Orwell).
Enjoy the decline, shithead!
Oh, great.
Just when I say people are too afraid to look racist to criticize politicians who think like Jeremiah Wright, a real live racist steps up.
Whores, I can't figure out if you are an elaborate hoax or an out-and-proud racist, but either way I wonder why you think people here are interested in reading your racist crap. Surely you can find a more appreciate audience.
Here are three video clips that show where the problems of Detroit today begin and end: One, and Two, and Three
I couldn't finish watching video #3. Sorry, but unless there is a way to remove the black people from Detroit, you'll never get the city to be successful. Small parts of the city, sure. Eventually, the people featured in those videos will ruin the rebuilt parts. Ignorance people elected by ignorant people.
In the #3 video, the woman talked about a Marshall Plan that we used after WWII to rebuilt Europe. I've watched videos of thousands and thousand of Germans in long lines moving one brick at a time to someone else chipping the cement off of them and then stacking the bricks to be used at a later date. Then I look at this fat-assed bitch from Detroit, and think there is no way in hell people like her could do one once of work to rebuild the city. She, and people who keep voting her in are the problem.
Alex said...
Gary, Indiana is a similar ghost-town shithole hell on earth.
Yes it is. If you take the Skyway from Chicago through Gary you'll notice that there are very few exits to Gary itself.
I know someone who is involved in urban farming in Detroit.
While the people directly involved aren't scared of worms, there are sometimes some interesting interactions.
It feels weird to see people promoting agriculture in Motor City, but it's one of the few uses of the large tracts of empty land. And there is a lot of empty land. The houses fell down, burned down, or were demolished. Often long after the people moved out of the area.
I also know people who say they would like to live in Detroit, where houses can be had cheaply. Except that they also like school systems that have a chance of working, and don't like the local crime rate.
Every suburb that neighbors Detroit is more attractive to live in than Detroit is. Thus many of the problems of the City.
@Aridog, @Wyo Sis
Michigan's Concealed Pistol License is often referred to as a CCW-permit.
Which is odd, because CCW is the designation of the crime of Concealed Carry of a Weapon.
I've got one, and I carry in most places I can go. (Except for places on the State's list of no-concealed-carry-here places.)
To borrow a phrase, it's a lighter burden than regret.
Amusingly, Michigan law is more friendly toward open carry of a firearm than Texas law is. Even so, openly-carrying is a quick way to get a lot of attention from the Police. Not always nice attention.
SJ ... ...open carry of a firearm...
I'm not an advocate for "open carry," though a long time NRA member. For civilian, concealed carry is the safest method for everyone. No need to advertise or potentially make your pistol easier to grab by someone. If you don't have a badge and police certification, don't carry strapped openly to your hip. Worst case you could be induced or forced to use it without sufficient cause...e.g., it can be an instigation element in a confrontation.
Most local jurisdictions' LEO's will cite you as a public nuisance for open carry in populated areas...even though it is technically legal to stroll around "strapped" like Gary Cooper in High Noon.
Even the FBI has its agents remove their sidearms (and stow in their offices) if they are not wearing a suit coat or a jacket concealing it inside a federal building.
SJ ... "CPL" is the term used in Detroit area present day mandatory training for a concealed carry permit. If issued, a "CPL" means Conceal Pistol License in accord with the current Concealed Pistol Law. Confusing, and odd because a revolver is not a pistol, etc.,...but thank politicians for small favors I guess. You can't expect them to know much technically, really. :-))
On the subject of what to carry, my preference for most casual carry is a small revolver like my S&W Model 49 with +P rounds. Low maintenance, safe as any can be, easily concealed. For the rare occasions these days that I want more power, it's going to be a Model 1911 .45 ACP, carried in Condition 3 or 2 depending where I am going. More maintenance, more bulk, harder to conceal.
Finally, I am not a fan of "tupperware hand-guns" ... especially the early models. There IS a GOOD reason many police departments subsequently required makers to make double action only or 8-10 lb minimum trigger pulls. My daughter thinks I am a tired old coot on this topic. Maybe, but I can clean my revolver 20 times in the time it takes here to clean her tupperware gun once...and the M1911 at least 5 times to one.
AllenS said ...
She, and people who keep voting her in are the problem.
Absolutely. Effective in 2013 elections the Detroit Common Council will be made up 2 "at large" members and 7 members elected by Districts which they must live in to hold office. Currently all 9 are "at large" members.
It should be interesting to see who moves to what districts to retain office ... and how they will behave when their district is a shit-hole versus the little enclaves they occupy now.
I have several good friends who live in Detroit and the current system does NOT represent them or their interests. Not sure the new one will be any better...but I get a sadistic pleasure thinking that at least 5 of these ignorant prima donas will have to actually live some where unpleasant. Of course, in reality they'll lie like rugs and keep a mail drop only in the hostile zones.
As Aridog can attest, I think it's a good time to point out that the City of Detroit is really a hellhole, but the suburbs around it (though they often get lumped in with the city in national news stories) are some of the nicest, safest small cities in the country. Both Troy and Sterling Heights were recently ranked in the top 25 safest cities in the United States.
There is a reason for it, and it may sound racist, but I really, really don't mean it that way. The city is about 80% black, and that typical inner city culture is not just pervasive here, but has taken completely over from the streets all the way up to the Common Council.
The inner-city culture does not exist in most of the suburbs, other than Pontiac, Highland Park, Royal Oak Twp, and a few other spots.
Also, other progressively run cities do NOT have the extent of the problems that Detroit has, so blaming Detroit on the blue model is simplistic. There are other factors, one being that the two sides (city and suburbs) do not trust each other in any way. Go to a Detroit News article comment thread on just about any subject to get a feel for it.
I am not a liberal, and as much as I dislike the blue model as a whole, Detroit's woes cannot be blamed solely on that.
I understand that there is such a thing as police brutality, but has anyone ever moved out of a city due to police brutality as opposed to excessive crime?.....I've never been to Detroit and don't know anything about the place. However, I can remember reading about Coleman Young, the new black mayor, waging a fierce campaign against police brutality. As I recall, there were many complimentary articles about Coleman Young early in his reign. Coleman Young made some very bad choices, but I don't think you will ever read about the role he played in Detroit's decline.
William,
My Dad is a retired Detroit police officer. There was a program called "STRESS", which was an acronym for a proactive policing method whereby cops dressed up as bums, other criminals, etc., to lure criminals to try something. This program prevented a lot of crime because criminals thought twice about robbing someone; the person being robbed may be a cop.
Young campaigned on ending this program, claiming it was racist, and that it targeted black people only. Of course, the black neighborhoods were where most of the crime happened...
He won a very close race against John Nichols in 1973, who was the police chief at the time. He was a very law-and-order type cop, and for us Detroiters, it was the fork in the road: do we stay a safe city, or become a hellhole. We know how that played out.
As for those complementary articles - the press was lefty back then as well. Coleman Young was treasurer for the Michigan branch of the Communist Party during the 1930's. They probably didn't mention that in those articles.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I Callahan ... re: Coleman Young and the STRESS detail within the Felony Prevention Section DPD.
You beat me to it. A number of my friends were part of STRESS from the origination, one of the closest was one of the four officers caught up in the Boyd, Brown, Bethune gun fight, where one officer died (Bradford) and another was crippled (Dooley)for life when shot in the face while lying wounded on the side walk. The subsequent manhunt was probably the largest in Detroit history. Nothing was ever the same after that...Detroit had turned to corner in to hell.
Funny thing about the "Coalman"...the Department kept a number of the toughest STRESS cops who eventually retired in due time. One rose to Deputy Chief in fact.
I saw a number of the old STRESS guys at a member's funeral last year...the deceased had been my apartment mate for 9 years.
@Aridog,
I currently own a S&W smallframe in .357, and Ruger's version of the KelTech 9mm. (Yeah, it's tupperware. It hits the sweet spot between easy-to-carry and easy-to-hit-target-with.)
RE: Mayor Coleman Young. I heard one former resident of the city claim that Young occasionally said things like "We've got to drive Whitey out of town" during his campaign.
If the quote was accurate, would that make him a racist?
I've also met a man who used to be a Detroit Police officer. When the City relaxed rules on where Police could live, he pulled up roots and resettled in a suburb. That was in the 90s, if I heard the guy right.
I went to Detroit last year for a deposition. I flew in early in the morning, rented a car and drove out to large auto mfr land. I didn't think it odd, due to the hour, that it was so very quiet. Everywhere. It didn't occur to me until 5:00 p.m., when the depo was over and I was driving back to the airport, that everything was still so quiet. And bleak, but that was expected. It was the quiet and lack of people, traffic, activity, that was so weird.
Also, finally figured out the derivation of "8 Mile." It's a road. Check.
"Detroiters", on whole, are a vile and contemptable people.
You can talk about the cops, CCW, the City Clowncil, Mayor (past and present), whatever-
Fact is, all positions of authority are drawn from the same pool, same culture.
@Callihan--bad news-
"Detroiters" are flooding the 'burbs, forcing everyone else to keep moving north.
They're like locusts, destroying everything in sight.
Eventually, we're going to run out of border.
Browndog said ...
Eventually, we're going to run out of border.
Sho' nuff...then we all gwine be like Benton harbor :)
SJ ... many police and fire had decamped to the burbs before the new rule, but the relaxed rule let them admit it. And, yeah the "Coalman" had a habit of saying that criminals & crooks should hit 8 Mile Road and not stop...e.g., the northern border of Detroit. That was interpreted by some as meaning white folks. He liked RICH white folks if they could enhance him...e.g., Hank the Deuce (Ford) and Max Fisher.
Being fair, Detroit was already a corrupt and collapsing town when Coleman Young took office and he greatly expanded the corruption to include his cronies. Then Kwame (Playa) Kilpatrick took it to the limit later on and went to jail, and is on trial as we speak on federal corruption charges.
Whores,
My hunch is you'll like hearing this (but anyway and I apologize up front for those I offend):
@wyo sis:
Truth hurts, doesn't it, lefty bitch?
Whores, fuck off!
(Now I will go back to ignoring the trolls)
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