Detroit: Faith and Hope
Conservatives love to see Detroit's misery. Detroit is the home of Motown. Conservatives mask their real animosities behind labels like "progressive" and "liberal" but they never draw a conceptually consistent conclusion across all of the city bankruptcies to identify causes.
List of Bankruptcy Filings Since January 2010
All Municipal Bankruptcy Filings: 36
City and Locality Bankruptcy Filings (8):
-- City of Detroit
-- City of San Bernardino, Calif.
-- Town of Mammoth Lakes, Calf. (Dismissed)
-- City of Stockton, Calif.
-- Jefferson County, Ala.
-- City of Harrisburg, Pa. (Dismissed)
-- City of Central Falls, R.I.
-- Boise County, Idaho (Dismissed)
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/munici......
Most people alive today remember the Black race riots of 1967. They see the "white flight" to the suburbs. They do not know about the Belle Isle Race Riots of 1943 instigated by Nazi sympathizers among the hillbillies who came to Detroit, at the same time as the Negroes whom they hated and feared. (As one country song tells it: "By day I make the cars;l By night I make the bars.")
Here on Gult's Gulch is a plaint by a Detroit business owner about his woes. I am sympathetic, but I do note this: he allows that public education in Detroit had failed (granted) but he hired people who did not need education. "Therein lies the rub..." They filed for unemployment and they filed for workman's compensation, and they made his life hell. What if he had hired graduates of Catholic high schools?
Working for my master's degree (2010), at Eastern Michigan University, I had a class in Local History, taught by Prof. JoEllen Vinyard from her book _For Faith and Fortune: The Education of Catholic Immigrants in Detroit, 1805-1925_ (University of Illinois Press, 1998).
"Even before the massive European immigrations of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Detroit had a tradition of Catholicism. Multiple immigrant groups became part of the city and considered it important to educate their daughters as well as their sons within the Church." http://press.illinois.edu/books/catalog/......
They got educated and they left for the suburbs, ever since Day One. White, black, rich, poor, Detroiters with aspirations left the inner city.
Meanwhile, from 1900 to 1980, the automotive manufacturers promised "good jobs" (high wages) that did not require an education. The result was FOUR GENERATIONS of parents who could not help their children with their homework. Ignorant whites clashed with ignorant blacks for power in the unions, while Americans of many ethnicities got educated and got out of town...
Moreover, the lesson of "Starnesville" is that its downfall originated with the owners of 20th Century Motors. That, too, applies to Detroit. Among the many failures, ills, evils, errors, and mistakes, they received tax breaks on their properties which replaced whole neighborhoods of homes. Poletown was the last disaster. The displaced homeowners went to other communities and the factory failed to pay off.
But if Detroit was destroyed by collectivism ( and mysticism) as I agree that it was, then so were a dozen other cities that failed because of mismanagement.
List of Bankruptcy Filings Since January 2010
All Municipal Bankruptcy Filings: 36
City and Locality Bankruptcy Filings (8):
-- City of Detroit
-- City of San Bernardino, Calif.
-- Town of Mammoth Lakes, Calf. (Dismissed)
-- City of Stockton, Calif.
-- Jefferson County, Ala.
-- City of Harrisburg, Pa. (Dismissed)
-- City of Central Falls, R.I.
-- Boise County, Idaho (Dismissed)
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/munici......
Most people alive today remember the Black race riots of 1967. They see the "white flight" to the suburbs. They do not know about the Belle Isle Race Riots of 1943 instigated by Nazi sympathizers among the hillbillies who came to Detroit, at the same time as the Negroes whom they hated and feared. (As one country song tells it: "By day I make the cars;l By night I make the bars.")
Here on Gult's Gulch is a plaint by a Detroit business owner about his woes. I am sympathetic, but I do note this: he allows that public education in Detroit had failed (granted) but he hired people who did not need education. "Therein lies the rub..." They filed for unemployment and they filed for workman's compensation, and they made his life hell. What if he had hired graduates of Catholic high schools?
Working for my master's degree (2010), at Eastern Michigan University, I had a class in Local History, taught by Prof. JoEllen Vinyard from her book _For Faith and Fortune: The Education of Catholic Immigrants in Detroit, 1805-1925_ (University of Illinois Press, 1998).
"Even before the massive European immigrations of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Detroit had a tradition of Catholicism. Multiple immigrant groups became part of the city and considered it important to educate their daughters as well as their sons within the Church." http://press.illinois.edu/books/catalog/......
They got educated and they left for the suburbs, ever since Day One. White, black, rich, poor, Detroiters with aspirations left the inner city.
Meanwhile, from 1900 to 1980, the automotive manufacturers promised "good jobs" (high wages) that did not require an education. The result was FOUR GENERATIONS of parents who could not help their children with their homework. Ignorant whites clashed with ignorant blacks for power in the unions, while Americans of many ethnicities got educated and got out of town...
Moreover, the lesson of "Starnesville" is that its downfall originated with the owners of 20th Century Motors. That, too, applies to Detroit. Among the many failures, ills, evils, errors, and mistakes, they received tax breaks on their properties which replaced whole neighborhoods of homes. Poletown was the last disaster. The displaced homeowners went to other communities and the factory failed to pay off.
But if Detroit was destroyed by collectivism ( and mysticism) as I agree that it was, then so were a dozen other cities that failed because of mismanagement.
Among Detroit's many problems were the fact that it was a one-horse town, an automotive capital. True, Burroughs and later CompuWare were there, but GM and Ford dominated with Chrysler filling in.
Other automotive manufacturer (Nash, Willys, Winton) located in other towns (Kenosha, Toledo, Indianapolis, Cleveland), but those towns never developed the single-industry ecology that Detroit did.
The same story played out in Manchester, England, a textile center when Karl Marx met Friedrich Engels. Sheffield was another: steel cutlery. Pittsburgh and steel. Rochester and Kodak. Once the market changes, the floor falls out.
I found a lot of truth in THE ECONOMY OF CITIES by Jane Jacobs.