Detroit:The City in Tatters

I honestly could not believe what I was watching.

One of the largest cities in the U.S.A is a ghost town.

This city is down to its bear bones and the average house price is $7,500

You can by a house for $50

29% of people are jobless and the majority of skyscrapers are empty.

I didn't realise this * happened in America

I strongly recommend every one watch this documentry if you've not seen it.

Extraordinary. YouTube - Requiem for Detroit

 

aye, so much for the richest country in the world eh

 

50 dollars for a house

you could get a game of monopoly with real houses and streets for a weeks wages, brilliant

 

to be honest only a small part of Detroit is like that and you could probaly make a documentary like that about any big city..

 

I understand where you're coming from mate but wouldnt we regard Glasgow a big city. I dont see anything in Glasgow to the extent of Detroit.

 

It's an old programme mate. The cheap houses are in the Projects, and you don't want to live there.

 

This probably explains the house i seen advertised in the Evening Times of all places lol. Looked quite a big one and that was up for auction for $7000 or something like that.

 

And i personally believe that is because guns are not legal to buy here, but that's just my opinion plus im not just saying glasgow but scotland in general has higher murder/drug abuse/suicide per 100,000 than anywhere in america or so i'm led to believe by the newspapers

 

It is the richest country.

Anyways, Detroit is a ridiculously unique situation but that video's a little melodramatic. There's "50 dollar houses" many places in the States (and the world where the gift tax exists) because of foreclosures - and so the banks had to get them off their hands for tax reasons and they have to charge a price to avoid it being a gift (which is taxable). Most of those crazy things have reasons behind them. Saying that it is the worst off city in the country. Basically it was the car center of the US. Then crime started happening and rich people left the city for the suburbs. When this happened they just completely started leaving to cities like Ann Arbour, so Detroit was a purely blue collar car city. Then a lot of the car jobs left overseas leaving only a couple companies. The unions got defensive of the few jobs they had kept and so made demands which ended up bankrupting the remaining car jobs in Detroit. Come 2008 there were foreclosures and jobs leaving the city like crazy... it was just the perfect economic storm. It shows that a city has to diversify to stay relevant.

 

Was screened on the BBC in April this year mate

 

Apparently it's supposed to be much the same in Las Vegas. I suppose the American Dream couldn't last forever

 

I saw it about a year ago on an American outlet.Anybody else getting database error when the come on to the forum ?

 

America is still a strong economy, if you take a city like Las Vegas there are extremely wealthy areas and extremely poor areas- that's been the reality of countries like the US, not solely the US, for a very long time. It's really a reflection on the socio-economic divisions found in most developed nations.

I don't think this documentary or the realities of cities like Detroit indicate America will not remain a hegemony for a very long time.

 

Was talking to a guy that just moved down here from Michigan and he was telling me about the situation up there. That unemployment rate is the official rate and is probably actually higher than in reality. That guy I was talking to who got a job working for United Airways Cargo was trying to convince his family to move down here. The U.S. is a big country though and this is an extreme example. Ohio is doing to well either.

 

Detriot has been like that for a while even before the economic downturn, If you go to other mid-level cities like Houston or Seattle you will see exactly the opposite. Detroit today is much like Belfast in the late 80s early 90s, in 10-15 years it will bounce back up

 

That about sums it up.Very dreary city Detroit everything is built around the car industry like you know with General Motors and Ford, but all the gas guzzlers like the SUV's , pick ups , and humvees have come off the road now, and most Americans are buying imported Japanese hybrid cars.
The worry is that many Mid West American cities may go like Detroit if America goes into a double dip in the recession, if that happens more foreclosures will be springing up all over the states with likely 9M unemployed or more. The dollar is very weak just now against the Euro and Pound, and Obama's financial policy of quantitative easing is beginning to wear off much to the alarm of the Fed, and they may have to pump more more money again into the ailing economy and banks, which in turn will create a whole host of new worries including rampant inflation and soaring unemployment.

 

How does the future look for Detroit?

 

It's not looking good. I wouldn't want to live there.

This is the article that has me worried.

Fed's volte face sends the dollar tumbling - Telegraph