What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
The always-fascinating Walter Russell Mead, writing on the website of The American Interest, notes that the city of Detroit is now only a few weeks away from bankruptcy. How low has Detroit sunk? Very:
Unemployment in the city of Detroit is estimated at about 20 percent; two thirds of the city’s children live in poverty. The two largest employers in the city: the dysfunctional public school system and the crippled city government. Decades of incompetence and corruption by elected officials in tandem with the decline of the once flourishing American automobile industry and (entirely understandable) flight by the better educated and the better off have thoroughly blighted what was once one of America’s most flourishing cities.
All this raises an obvious--and important--question. Not that you'll ever hear it:
Leftie intellectuals spend a lot of time analyzing the “false consciousness” that keeps American workers voting for Republicans who (in the view of the intellectuals) support anti-worker policies. We don’t hear nearly as much from these incisive social thinkers about the false urban consciousness that keeps voters supporting policies and politicians that have ruined the cities, but there you are.
Many of the policies that are dearest to the hearts of powerful Democratic politicians are responsible for wrecking the lives of many of their most loyal supporters, but the loyal supporters turn out year after year.
Democratic policies...and wrecked lives.
- Comment (59)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
Comments:
Aug '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
EThompson
Misthiocracy
If it was all about race, wouldn't middle-class (tax-paying) blacks be falling over each other to buy up (dirt cheap) land in Detroit?
The annoying fact is that middle and upper class blacks living in the Detroit metropolitan area reside primarily in the suburbs of Southfield and Troy- amidst primarily white demographics. · 31 minutes ago
If we agree with each other, why are we arguing?
;-)
May '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Oh, and the murder rate in Detroit (35 per 100,000 per year) is almost an order of magnitude higher than the national average (4.8 per 100,000 per year).
--------
Question for discussion: Is there any possible way to turn Detroit around? Or is it doomed? Are there historical examples?
Aug '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Don Tillman: Oh, and the murder rate in Detroit (35 per 100,000 per year) is almost an order of magnitude higher than the national average (4.8 per 100,000 per year).
--------
Question for discussion: Is there any possible way to turn Detroit around? Or is it doomed? Are there historical examples? · 2 minutes ago
New York City in the 1970s? Bankrupt and a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Dec '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Misthiocracy
New York City in the 1970s? Bankrupt and a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
We simply can't ever compare the two economies of Detroit and New York.
Edited on March 11, 2012 at 11:51pmSep '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, home to the late Bethlehem Steel Corporation, has held steady its population at around 75,ooo since post WWII. Between 1960 and the end of the century there were several multi-term Republican administrations, interspersed with some moderate Democratic ones. Some of those Republicans foresaw the day when "The Steel" would not employ tens of thousands and they took steps to establish industrial parks and to develop the the tourist potential of the town's historic buildings.
Oct '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Misthiocracy
EThompson:What's the Matter with Detroit?
White Flight- and it began in the early 1960s.
I would prefer we try to kill the phraseWhite Flight.
Better to call itTaxpayer Flight.
It's not just whites who flee terrible cities.
Whatever it's called, it's the symptom, not the cause.
Oct '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
No such "way" exists. Race-baiting is a reflexive Leftie response because this is about political power, nothing else. Left wing Blacks use race against other Blacks (as explained elsewhere in this thread) because they want to retain power. Full stop.
The Left is very predictable on race: they use this card because the Right fears it so much. Stop fearing it and you drain it of its power. When fighting cynical manipulators, you have to take the long view and counter-manipulate.
The Right's goal ought to be to make the Left use the card so often that the public just tunes it out. Arguably, we’ve already reached this end-state for middle class whites. The race charge is so ludicrously predictable that it’s simply boring. The only ones paying attention to it are already on the far Left, so who cares?
Dec '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
As a suburban Detroit dweller (and avoid the entirety of Wayne County as much as I possibly can) I would put the odds of Detroit surviving into the next half-century at less than 10%. It has all the problems of third world economies and condemns the benefits of the first world. The corruption is complete at all levels of city and county government. Think African dictatorships. The crime is truly epidemic. 3rd generational welfare dependence. Anything of value has either run screaming north of 8 mile road (yes, that 8 mile. Not that marshal mather ever really set foot that far south much) or run south - WAYYYYYY south. There is no path to survival for the city of Detroit. There is, frankly, nothing of value left. As properties are abandoned, they become vacant lots. Green space continues to grow according to sattelite pictures I've seen lately.I would normally say it's sad but I have a very hard time feeling sorry for such self-destructive individual behavior on such a massive scale.
Jan '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
I agree, I lived near The Palace.
Remember, Windsor Canada is South of Detroit.
May '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
The most interesting story on Detroit in the last couple of years was by Matt Labash.
Peter, you should get Walter Russell Mead on either The Podcast or Uncommon Knowledge to talk about his entire series on the decline and fall of the "blue social model". In his writings, (he is up to "Beyond Blue" essay #7 so far), he has described how in the '80's he thought that some minor reforms would be good enough to preserve what he thought was the "good" approach; he frankly says that he was wrong back then, and we now need to return to less government, right-to-work, and entrepreneurial innovation to save the urban jungles.
Oct '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Detroit is Starnesville, and GM is the Twentieth Century Motor Company.
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
1. A neighbor of mine is a movie gaffer, and a damned good one. He got a job working on the "Red Dawn" remake. They needed a city where they could blow things up, block off great swaths of an urban downtown for weeks without inconveniencing a soul, drive real tanks into real buildings. Naturally, they chose Detroit.
2. The "ruins of Detroit" stories usually have pictures of this place, the Michigan Central Station. It's the most extraordinary ruin in America - but to be fair, part of it had to do with location. Wrong building in the wrong place.
3. Sigh.
4. Oh, that Red Dawn remake? It's been in the can for some time. Originally the invaders were Chinese, but investors worried that would hurt international markets like, say, "China."
Now they're North Koreans.
Dec '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
I grew up in Bloomfield Hills; the day I received my driver's license, I was instructed by the parents to stay above 8 Mile Road.
Ok: I broke the rules and actually attended an Iggy Pop concert in that very same place. :=)
Edited on March 12, 2012 at 5:42amJan '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
The same thing that happened in Detroit with Milliken and Young is happening now in Newark with Christie and Booker. (Camden is already too far gone for Christie to practice Republican compassionate conservatism.) The Governor and others think the young fresh face who gives lip-service to personal responsibility can turn things around.
No chance. He's a Democrat.
You, me and everyone else on Ricochet knows what it would take to turn Detroit, Newark, Cleveland and every other Democrat-governed hell-hole around in five years. Abolish the current government and courts, have the state police patrol in the city and declare the municipality an "open city" - no taxes, no regulations, no mandates, no city services, no payments, no nothing - strictly civil penalties for property crimes and quick, sure criminal justice for robbery, rape and assault.
Any property in arrears for previous taxation goes on the block for public sale. Abandoned properties can be claimed by anyone who puts a stake in the ground.
The strong, adventurous and capable will flood in. Brick and steel will rise. Money will be made.
The inhabitants who are willing to work will seize the new opportunities. The losers will self-deport.
Nov '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
How is it that the real Detroit is more grim than the fictional one in Robocop?
Aug '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Clearly, OCP is a model corporate citizen.
Feb '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Freesmith:
The inhabitants who are willing to work will seize the new opportunities. The losers will self-deport.
And go where, exactly?
Pardon me, but we can't just have Ayn Rand wave her arms and wish that problem away.
As another resident of the Detroit metro area I know where the losers went when Detroit became too unlivable: The moved out to the various suburbs, and are slowly, inexorably turning them into soon-to-be uninhabitable mini-Detroits. I'll spare everyone a swarm of anecdotes about this.
The problem is that after several generations of the welfare state there are simply too many people who are no where near functional enough to live in a free society and follow civilized rules. Absent the check in the mailbox and criminal activity they would just starve.
Sad panda. But my point is that you simply can't assume they will just wander off and not be a problem.
Oct '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Xennady
The problem is that after several generations of the welfare state there are simply too many people who are no where near functional enough to live in a free society and follow civilized rules. Absent the check in the mailbox and criminal activity they would just starve.
I think this argument is refuted by our experience with Welfare reform in the 1990s. Below is from Republican Policy Committee circa August 1999:
Dec '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Freesmith:
Abolish the current government and courts, have the state police patrol in the city and declare the municipality an "open city" - no taxes, no regulations, no mandates, no city services, no payments, no nothing - strictly civil penalties for property crimes and quick, sure criminal justice for robbery, rape and assault.
The problem remains that one needs a voting base to support your eminently sensible and pragmatic suggestions!