The deterioration of Detroit

You beat me to it. Very post-apocalyptic. Sad.

 

I left journalism in March to accept a PR job in downtown Detroit. The contrast on the drive to and from work is amazing. It looks like a war zone as you're in the city, but with the skyscrapers in the distance - albeit a war zone with lots of very creative spray-painting ("vegan coke head" is a personal favorite). (I've been taking surface streets vs. freeways because of a major freeway closure.)

Downtown, though, is hopping. So many good things are going on. On days I have a little bit of time, I like to walk around. It's so alive with professionals - mainly young professionals - walking around. The RiverWalk is so cool. And my co-workers are a cool mix of white and black, city and suburbia, and we all get along. We joke about racial differences, and there's never any malice. It's an eye-opening, learning experience.

Then there's the drive home through the war zone back to my suburban home. Bizarre.

 

I left Detroit in 2007, and it was the same thing. Revived downtown but everything else looks like, as I've posted before, a nuclear zone. We're at seven years later and it sounds like it's still the same thing.

But I just don't think reviving downtown Detroit is going to work. Geographically speaking, it's a large city. There are a lot of residents who haven't been affected by the improvements.

My former neighbors, who live in a nice part of Detroit (East English Village -- not a suburb), have had vacant neighbors' homes broken into (as in stealing copper from basements.) Even when I was there, they heard gunshots a couple blocks away on a nightly basis. It's much worse now.

Rebuilding the downtown doesn't help them much. They're the good taxpayers, too. They pay incredible property taxes to make up for the property owners who don't pay for whatever reason.

It's just so sad to me. I'm so glad I got out.

 

"Detroit City Is the Place to Be," by Mark Binelli is a great, recent read about Detroit, its problems and possible solutions for the future. I highly recommend it.

 

I remember a few years ago, someone on here posted a satellite image of the city about40 or 50 years ago and then another image from that day. It was stunning how many houses had disappeared.

 

I read a few things recently that startled me.
First is the crime rate. Only about 20 percent of the homicides are solved.
There is little indication by the media about how truly dangerous the city has become.
Second is the high school graduation rate - twenty-fkin-five.
A young student is more likely to wind up in prison than in college.

 

I've seen pictures of the interiors of abandoned office buildings and schools in Detroit. As if a bomb made a bunch of messy people disappear with their stuff left behind.

 

If you don't mind me asking, how much was your salary bump going from journalism to PR in the Detroit area?

 

About $5,000 annually. The good news is I don't pay as much for health insurance. The bad news is that I have to pay for parking (about $60 a month) and we're likely going to take 5 percent pay cuts in October (it's a government job).

 

Yeah. It's amazing how quickly a house can fall apart when no one is there. Even compared with a house where slobs who don't lift a finger at home repair.

 

That's the thing that amazed me so much in those pictures. A house goes from well maintained with a perfect, cared for lawn to a smoking heap of rubble in four, or even two years. I struggle to understand how that's possible this side of a natural disaster.

 

Once you knock out the windows and doors and expose the interior to the elements, a house will collapse pretty quick. Especially in an area that has harsh winters.