{"id":39714,"date":"2013-11-11T11:58:16","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T17:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=39714"},"modified":"2013-11-29T11:57:14","modified_gmt":"2013-11-29T17:57:14","slug":"blight-of-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=39714","title":{"rendered":"Blight of Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is Detroit’s new-found\u00a0cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre<\/em> ignoring the past to cloud the future?<\/p>\n

George Clooney had the Sudan. \u00a0Bono has Africa. \u00a0Anthony Bourdain – and much of the American media –\u00a0apparently has Detroit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Michigan’s So Not Grand Central Station: built in 1912 and on the national registry of historic places. It was closed in 1988 and is one of Detroit’s estimated 78,000 abandoned buildings.<\/p><\/div>\n

In recent months, the city of Detroit has witnessed two narratives arise in Phoenix-like fashion from the economic ashes of the city, often in conjecture with themselves. \u00a0One is the purported economic revitalization of the city that gave birth to Motown and the American automotive industry. \u00a0It is a narrative fostered by Quicken Loans founder (and Cleveland Cavs owners) Dan Gilbert who, among others,\u00a0has put millions into Detroit<\/a>\u00a0to try and restore its grandeur. \u00a0The other narrative, the so-called “ruin porn” seen in picture form below, depicts Detroit as a third-world ghetto. \u00a0A Somalia on the St. Clair River.<\/p>\n

The former delights the denizens of Detroit with hopes of a better future. \u00a0The latter rankles them. \u00a0Gilbert himself expressed outrage when\u00a060 Minutes<\/em>\u00a0balance their report on the Motor City between Gilbert’s altruism and the destruction of the out-lying portions of the city, comparing it to Dresden after the Allied bombing of World War II. \u00a0Gilbert tweeted a defiant message<\/a>, stating “a\u00a0city\u2019s soul that will not die was the story & they missed it.\u201d \u00a0But even a sympathetic, blue-collar soul as\u00a0Bourdain, whose CNN show Parts Unknown<\/em>\u00a0highlighted the city last night, saw the need to balance Detroit’s attempts to pick itself up off the ground with the stark realities of a city undone.<\/p>\n

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The Fisher Body Plant: once part of the GM empire<\/p><\/div>\n

Both narratives ignore the Chrysler in the room – how Detroit got to where it is today.<\/p>\n

If the “ruin porn” industry renders pity without judgement, the acts of Dan Gilbert and others, as well-intended as they obviously are, seek a future for Detroit without acknowledging its past or present. \u00a0Not once in\u00a060 Minutes<\/em>‘ coverage did the story’s telejournalism\u00a0deal with the political causes for Detroit’s decay<\/a>\u00a0– a corrupt, one-party institution burrowed like a tick into City Hall. \u00a0Equally, if differently, ignorant are the views of Gilbert et al who believe that once their plans to remove all of Detroit’s blight (78,000<\/em>\u00a0buildings), capital will come easily\u00a0rushing back into the city<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Gilbert is no fan of urban farming, though. When he envisions land cleared of\u00a0 blight, he sees developers rushing in to build anew…<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen that blight is gone, maybe we don\u2019t have to be talking about shrinking cities because it will be such a rush of people who want to get into low-value housing \u2014 when all the utilities are there and the land is pretty much close to free\u2014 not exactly free, but close to it \u2014 and all the utilities are there, it becomes very cheap for a builder\/developer to develop a residential unit, and they are going to develop them and develop them in mass as soon as we get the structures down and maybe we don\u2019t have to worry about raising peas or corn or whatever it is you do in the farm.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The Highland Park Police Station: even Detroit’s police stations no longer want anything to do with the city<\/p><\/div>\n

And what will cause developers (yet alone individuals or businesses) to return to a city with the\u00a0highest property tax rate in the country<\/a>? \u00a0What will encourage retail industries when Michigan’s sales tax is 6% on top of that? \u00a0Detroit’s backers can honestly claim that the city ranks no where near the top of the tax chain (Detroit ranks 92nd nationally<\/a>; Minneapolis is 52nd by comparison). \u00a0But the tax climate is far from ideal, especially the dubbed\u00a0“most dangerous city in America”<\/a>\u00a0with a murder rate 10-times the national average. \u00a0Throw in a\u00a058-minute response time for police<\/a>, to attract businesses back, Detroit may literally need the fictional hero RoboCop (to whom a statue is being built –\u00a0seriously<\/a>).<\/p>\n

There isn’t much evidence that Detroit is about to change its ways.<\/p>\n

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The Merrill Fountain at Palmer Park: has sat empty for 50 years since being moved from the Opera House. Vandals have stolen much of it.<\/p><\/div>\n

Since Governor Rick Snyder’s\u00a0decision<\/a>\u00a0to appoint emergency manager Kevyn Orr last spring, Detroit’s\u00a0journey to bankruptcy<\/a>\u00a0has been managed with minimal (some would say no) input from City Hall. \u00a0As the case has headed to court, where Orr has testified about\u00a0Detroit’s long-term debts of $18 billion<\/a>, city officials have fought the measure almost every step of the way. \u00a0The\u00a0election of Mike Duggan<\/a>\u00a0as mayor, the former head of the Detroit Medical Center, has been advertised as the promotion of a turnaround artist. \u00a0But while Duggan had success revitalizing the city’s Medical Center, Duggan also ran on opposing Orr’s decisions and comes as a political prot\u00e9g\u00e9\u00a0of former\u00a0Wayne County Executive Edward McNamara – an official who backed the cartoonishly corrupt Kwame Kilpatrick and had\u00a0FBI agents and state police\u00a0raid his own office in November 2002<\/a>, over alleged corruption in airport contracts and campaign fundraising. \u00a0Meet the new boss.<\/p>\n

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The American Hotel: built in 1926, the hotel is 11 stories high with over 300 rooms. It has remained vacant since the early 90’s.<\/p><\/div>\n

Oh, there have been the requisite platitudes. \u00a0Duggan and Orr have broken bread in what was described as a\u00a0“very good first meeting.”<\/a>\u00a0 And Duggan has\u00a0said all the right things<\/a>\u00a0that a reformer would state, such as being “a huge believer in lean processing. If you are not excellent at making systems work, you cannot survive…”<\/p>\n

But the inertia of the status quo has been apparent even after only one week from the election. \u00a0The Michigan House Appropriations Committee\u00a0ranking Democrat\u00a0Rep. Fred Durhal, Jr. is\u00a0angry that Duggan hasn’t called him yet<\/a>. \u00a0Metro Detroit AFL-CIO President Chris Michalakis essentially\u00a0threw down a polite ultimatum<\/a>\u00a0that Duggan must “honor” his commitment to working families, while suggesting the labor doesn’t trust the new mayor. \u00a0Duggan claims he just wants a seat at the table as Detroit’s debts are solved, and if Synder and Orr are smart, they’ll allow it.<\/p>\n

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Wilbur Wright High School: closed in 2005, this building actually is among the few on this list that has been demolished. 10,000 buildings have been torn down in Detroit since 2010.<\/p><\/div>\n

The decision to abrogate Detroit’s city government in the bankruptcy process may have been politically necessary (Detroit certainly hasn’t come to grips with its position despite many, many, many opportunities), but doing so has allowed Snyder and Orr to play the villain while the usual suspects who caused this economic disaster play the victim. \u00a0However, it’s also allowed Snyder to take all the credit too. \u00a067% of Michigan voters approved the move back in March<\/a>\u00a0(including 41% of Detroit), and the decision has given Snyder a\u00a0welcome bump in his approval rating<\/a>. \u00a0That’s a short term political fix to a long-term structural problem.<\/p>\n

Mike Duggan may be a product of the system that failed Detroit, but he’s viewed warily by both it. \u00a0Orr’s contract expires in the fall of 2014; Duggan and the City Council can vote whether or not to renew it – almost literally the only voice they have in the process. \u00a0If that’s the first time Duggan has to impact the process, he’ll have likely caved by then to labor, vote to end Orr’s tenure and – more importantly – work to undo reforms set in place. \u00a0Should Rick Snyder not return in 2015, an opportunity to address Detroit’s deeper fundamental problems will have passed and a new administration will slap a band-aid bailout on the city, and hope more journalists write about Dan Gilbert than\u00a0urban hunters who live off of raccoon to supplement their meals<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is Detroit’s new-found\u00a0cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre ignoring the past to cloud the future? George Clooney had the Sudan. \u00a0Bono has Africa. \u00a0Anthony Bourdain – and much of the American media –\u00a0apparently has Detroit. In recent months, the city of Detroit has witnessed two narratives arise in Phoenix-like fashion from the economic ashes of the city, often in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,105,4,129,62,74,255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-first-ringer","category-media","category-unions","category-state-of-affairs","category-the-great-recession","category-the-racket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39714"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40269,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39714\/revisions\/40269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}