Time Magazine captures the decline of Detroit

[Mike Furley]

Check out this collection of photographs from Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089,00.html

Without captions, you could easily mistake these photos of present day Detroit for Europe right after WW2.

[amazinblue]

Furley,

Interesting link. I was born in Detroit and grew up in the city / suburbs.

The decline of the city is amazing - really, quite a sad thing.

I do wonder what could be done to bring business and investment to the city / area to restore it in some way. Though, I don't want to impose thoughts here - the key is the focus on education (or lack thereof), dependence on a single industry, and expectations people have from government are all inter-related and have contributed to the city's decay and demise.

[Mike Furley]

A broken city is no different than a broken country. To fix Detroit you have to adress 5 things:

1.) reduce crime

2.) train/educate the people

3.) lower/eliminate taxes for corporations

4.) reform workers compensation/disabilities laws to make them employer friendly.

5.) Enact tort reform to limit damages companies are exposed to if they should be sued in state court.


Do those five things and companies will return. Works everytime.

[osusteve]

This is really sad.

Living in Dallas, Texas, I meet so many people from Michigan and Ohio who have moved here for a good job or better opportunity. There is so much brain drain leaving the midwest. You would think that Michigan, with a great institution like the University of Michigan, would be able to harness and keep much of that research, technology, etc. in Michigan and the kids would stay home.

The unions are also a big, big problem. Why would a corporation want to move to Detroit when they can go to a right to work state like Texas?

[rickyleach]

osusteve, thats just it , if you went to michigan your smart enough to know there isnt any jobs in the great lake state, people are moving out , right now there isnt much positive going on in the job market in michigan, gm, chrysler, ford , it is very sad, you had mentioned texas , my wifes brother lives in longview and says they dont feel the crunch like all of us in ohio or michigan, he works for a steel company and said things are going pretty well. i also grew up in the detroit area and as far as im concerned ,that city died a long time ago , and as far as the uaw ,they have sucked the life out of those corp..

[RealSchool]

Coleman Young is all that needs to be said. Horrible mayor.

One of the big reasons the Raleigh area has so many jobs is that the state government not only offers low corp taxes but also throws money at them to come here. Detroit might be too far gone IMO.

[Wolvrin704]

Coleman Young is all that needs to be said. Horrible mayor.

One of the big reasons the Raleigh area has so many jobs is that the state government not only offers low corp taxes but also throws money at them to come here. Detroit might be too far gone IMO.

And on that we can agree. Detroit and the whole state put too many of their eggs into the automotive basket and now its draining the life out of them.

[bluefan]

Check out this collection of photographs from Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089,00.html

Without captions, you could easily mistake these photos of present day Detroit for Europe right after WW2.

Looks more like the buildings at Chernobyl and Prypiat. Google it.

[Blue In Ohio]

I think the politicians are out of touch with just how an economy works. They think they can retrain 20 percent of the population for jobs in healthcare but who will be able to pay for all the healthcare? To have a good economy a nation must produce things. You can't have a great service industry with no industry to service. Since the adoption of free trade and exit of manufacturing the hole in the economy just grows larger. No economy can be based on just services. This was alot better country 40 years ago when we had good industries that paid workers well enough to afford things like healthcare. These days if your job is not your whole life you lose your job. The idiot politicians have really taken America backwards with the thinking that American workers are supposed to compete with every third world mudhole on earth. The USA used to be better than that and used to have standards which is the reason why so many wanted to be here. Now the USA is just on it's way to being one big permanent welfare state where half the population makes enough to pay federal taxes and a large chunk of the population sits on the social service dole because there are no jobs there. Unless job and manufacturing are brought back our country is well on it's way to insolvency because the numbers just don't add up. In Michigan alone 4 million people are collecting social services. Moving the jobs was a huge mistake. People will work but the jobs have to be here to work. Politicians have a way of thinking that jobs will just come out of thin air and everything will be alright. We will all spend years waiting for that to happen until we elect a bunch that can see the error of their ways. When they finally do ten or fifteen years from now what will be left of America? With no jobs or industry to tax the government can't survive unless everybody pays more. The cost of those cheap goods in Wall Mart will be an insolvent nation and taxes so high you have nothing left. Being a math person none of the things these politicians say adds up with me. I don't believe in magic or how they just say everything is good and it will be good. I knew it was doom years ago when Clinton passed NAFTA and low and behold it has been just that. Something has to be produced by the USA and bought by the USA to generate a base of wealth and jobs. If the something is just bought and all the proceeds go to the wealthy few at the top and a foreign country we will never get out of this mess.