Detroit: Death of a City

[Coito ergo sum]

[Coito ergo sum]

[laklak]

For years the Big 3 sat back and made gas-guzzling, unreliable pieces of shit and let foreign manufacturers take over the market. I had a mid-80s Olds that you actually had to drop the front engine mounts in order to change the number 6 plug. Never had that problem with a Volkswagen, I can assure you. The unions do share some of the blame. The UAW negotiated wages and particularly retirement benefits that were absurd. Not to take away from what the unions did for the working man, but there can be too much of a good thing. I remember seeing back in the late 70s that a senior worker was costing in wages, benefits and retirement something like $50 an hour. This at a time when the minimum wage was maybe $3 or $4 an hour (if that). When the foreign manufacturers, capitalizing on their success in the market, started opening plants here they naturally gravitated to the Southern states where unions had little if any presence, they're now a major player in the Southern economy. 6.1 billion a year in payroll in Tennessee alone. With new auto plants opening every year the South is poised to take over from Motown as the major auto manufacturing center in the country.

I was in Novi in the early 90s for six months, downtown Detroit was a hellhole then, long before the current economic meltdown. The city didn't do anything to tackle urban blight, drugs, gangs and general lawlessness. No one went downtown except to gawk at gangbangers and hookers, I doubt you can even do that now. Other cities in the North have managed to reinvent themselves, attract new industries and revitalize their downtowns, Detroit evidently lacked the will to do so. On top of that, local politics was notoriously corrupt, probably second to only Chicago.

[devogue]

The atheist "A" and fisting.

Dawkins should use it as his new logo.

[Warren Dew]

The unions do share some of the blame. The UAW negotiated wages and particularly retirement benefits that were absurd. Not to take away from what the unions did for the working man, but there can be too much of a good thing. I remember seeing back in the late 70s that a senior worker was costing in wages, benefits and retirement something like $50 an hour. This at a time when the minimum wage was maybe $3 or $4 an hour (if that).

Unions were probably a good thing up through the 1920s, when to succeed they had to prove their worth by delivering overall benefits to society that outweighed government opposition. After they gained enough political clout to get the government on their side, though, they became a drag on the economy. The problems in Detroit can in large part be traced to the order of magnitude gap between unionized UAW wages that sucked all the margin out of the local economy and the the poverty level wages you mention that were the only thing available to the majority of the population.

When the foreign manufacturers, capitalizing on their success in the market, started opening plants here they naturally gravitated to the Southern states where unions had little if any presence, they're now a major player in the Southern economy. 6.1 billion a year in payroll in Tennessee alone. With new auto plants opening every year the South is poised to take over from Motown as the major auto manufacturing center in the country.

It wasn't just that unions had little presence; it's that many southern states had right to work laws that leveled the playing field between unions and corporations. As a result, the southern auto workers actually get paid more than UAW workers, while costing the auto companies only about half as much.

By the way, you could see that Detroit was declining as far back as the early 1970s or late 1960s when I lived in Michigan. The Japanese auto companies may have pounded the coffin lid shut, but Detroit was stepping into it even before the Japanese companies were much of a factor.

[Wumbologist]

By the way, you could see that Detroit was declining as far back as the early 1970s or late 1960s when I lived in Michigan. The Japanese auto companies may have pounded the coffin lid shut, but Detroit was stepping into it even before the Japanese companies were much of a factor.

If you go strictly by population figures, the decline actually started right after the end of WWII.

[Warren Dew]

I think it's possible to have some population decline without being a declining city. Whether that ever applied to Detroit, I don't know.

[Coito ergo sum]

For years the Big 3 sat back and made gas-guzzling, unreliable pieces of shit and let foreign manufacturers take over the market.

For a period of time, but much of the alleged quality difference was overstated. In the 1970s the Japanese made crap. In the 1980s, they hit their stride and Toyota and Honda really got going. For about 10 years there was a measurable difference as you've pointed out.

By the 1990's the American auto companies had turned it around, for the most part. The idea of "foreign=better" had settled in, though and has been tough shaking it. For the past 10 years, there has been no measurable difference, and in many respects each American car company makes vehicles that stack up against any comparable Asian comparison.

I had a mid-80s Olds that you actually had to drop the front engine mounts in order to change the number 6 plug. Never had that problem with a Volkswagen, I can assure you. The unions do share some of the blame. The UAW negotiated wages and particularly retirement benefits that were absurd. Not to take away from what the unions did for the working man, but there can be too much of a good thing.

We used to joke about the auto worker who was a Republican but didn't know it. For years many of these guys were making six figures for working on an assembly line.

I was in Novi in the early 90s for six months, downtown Detroit was a hellhole then, long before the current economic meltdown.

Early 90s was pre-Rennaissance. In the mid-to late 90s, the thought was that Detroit was making a turnaround. In some respects it was. Coleman A. Young, the fuckwit Mayor that Detroit had for like 25 years, finally died, and there were some folks in there that actually gave a shit and cared. Then came the "Kwame Kilpatrick" years - a thug mayor who ruined 10 years of possible improvement in one fell, drug-induced, stripper murdering swoop.

The city didn't do anything to tackle urban blight, drugs, gangs and general lawlessness. No one went downtown except to gawk at gangbangers and hookers, I doubt you can even do that now. Other cities in the North have managed to reinvent themselves, attract new industries and revitalize their downtowns, Detroit evidently lacked the will to do so. On top of that, local politics was notoriously corrupt, probably second to only Chicago.

Racism in Detroit is rampant. The 8 Mile divide is real, and many white suburbans refuse to even go to detroit, if they don't have to. All the money is in a donut around the city.

Detroit and the surrounding areas can be best described as "half-assed." They do everything half-way. They build crap, and it's usually ugly. It's also the only place I've ever seen that shuts down entire freeways to do road work - routinely. When I was there they shut down 39 and then 10 and then 696, one after the other - they had tremendous detours forcing huge numbers of people to drive 10-20 miles out of their way to commute, and the traffic resulting from it was maddening. Idiots.