As a kid I used to shop often at the paperback book and board game sections of that downtown Hudson's store. They were a little window for me into the wider world out there. I remember the Roostertail, too, though mostly as a place the adults talked about.

So I was just reading last night about the rash of arson fires that started in Flint immediately (as in hours) after the city announced that it was going to have to lay off some firefighters. This continued until the city not only agreed to hire them back, but add more. So basically, the public sector unions in Flint are running a protection racket.

Cousin Dave, if they were burning Flint down, it should have been called urban renewal, not arson.

Hey, California, take a looooooong look at Michigan, especially Detroit and Flint. That is pretty much Marley's ghost showing up in your bed chamber, chains and all.

Yeah, I agree with Spartee. Burning down Flint would be a public service.

I grew up in Saginaw. I go back about once a year to see my relatives. It's almost as bad as Detroit in terms of boarded up, wrecked buildings. I'm glad I escaped when I did. You don't have enough money to get me to live there. Seriously, the whole state is a trainwreck.

It's very sad to see such stately architecture deline into ruins, in less than a century...but having a corrupt left wing city government for 40 years will do this to a city.

The "compassion" of Liberal ideology results in cities like Detroit and states like California, entitlements are like government Crack, forever poisoning the well.

You can also check out the "feral houses" - Detroit suburbs being reclaimed by nature:

http://www.jamesgriffioen.net/index.php?/prairies/feral-houses/

all those ruined books made me want to cry.

"Hey, California, take a looooooong look at Michigan, especially Detroit and Flint. "

And it can't come a day too soon. I am speaking as a Californian. We should press-gang the inhabitants of these urban sprawls into rooting out the sewers and power lines and regrade the land to its original shape. Plant oaks. And try to forget we ever thought this shit was a good idea.

They are already plowing under sub-divisions of houses that were never occupied in Stockton. They actually built houses on fertile agricultural land.

It can't come soon enough. Ten million too many people.

Jim - the problem in this country is a non-ideal distribution over the land. I say take those 10 million people are put them in the midwest.

"That is pretty much Marley's ghost"

He was a very popular musician. I'm sure he'd be helping Jamaica right now in their time of need.

...the problem in this country is a non-ideal [population] distribution over the land. I say take those 10 million people are put them in the midwest.

It's not where the people live, but how.

What happened in Detroit is what happens when the government takes from the productive to subsidize the unproductive or the less productive.

It's what happens when the government forces salaries to be set at levels far above the market value for the job being done.

It's what happens when the government allows welfare and dependency to become a way of life.

It's what happens when you put people who have no understanding of economics in charge of the economy.

Free trade and Detroit. Ouch.

20k? Wow, a house at 120k sounds amazing to me!

Rural Detroit

Read the article. They are trying to roll back area of Detroit and turn it into farm land. I think it is the first city to downgrade.

We might have discussed it on this blog at the time: this story was spooky as Hell. Not just for the individual tragedy, but to think that a building of such seeming majesty could be a place where unmourned corpses are kept fresh by the chill... Which itself is part of horror. Detroit is COLD. Without money coming through, that's a bad place for a large population to live.

> They are trying to roll back area of Detroit
> and turn it into farm land. I think it is
> the first city to downgrade.

I'm not against it in principle, but can they even DO that? Would you want to eat a vegetable grown in the soil of a city that had been a major 20th American century industrial site? Would the ground be full of poisons?

I want to know who they think will farm that land if they do that. Too many people there are on government assistance, with no incentive to do anything else. I think Conan covered the why of it nicely.

Detroit ranks 8th in terms of contaminated sites per capita in this listing (Baltimore is 1st, Los Angeles 4th):

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/10/1003_toxic_towns/index_01.htm

That covers industrial sites that leached toxins into soil & groundwater. Most of the acreage proposed for reversion to farm land would be abandoned residential areas.

Even so... People bury shit and fertilize and paint particles fall off their houses and....

Whatever, this will not be my problem. But if kids who eat Detroit Beets all get elbow cancer or something, remember you heard it here first.

"They are already plowing under sub-divisions of houses that were never occupied in Stockton. They actually built houses on fertile agricultural land."

Just like in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley earlier. None of this just happened in a vacuum -- it happened because the federal government decided to build massive water projects (e.g., Hoover Dam). When the water was scarce, people would not live on dusty land but certain hardy species of agriculture would thrive with hard work. When the water was subsidized and plentiful, the land suddenly became more valuable divided into residential plots.

Without essentially-free water, Las Vegas would still be a city of no more than 10000 people.