Socialism wins again - Detroit goes Bankrupt!

[Undertoad]

FYI the Tundra V8 is shared with Lexus LS and GS models, and the BMW that gets a V8 (and also a V12!) is the 7-series. These are quiet luxury vehicles, no?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

FYI the Tundra V8 is shared with Lexus LS and GS models, and the BMW that gets a V8 (and also a V12!) is the 7-series. These are quiet luxury vehicles, no?

Yes. And completely unnecessary. They are still marketing to people stuck in myths. People who fear change or have no idea that the 1950 high tech product is now a buggy whip.

Many V-8 are noisy. Because noise and low performance successfully markets to those who are still attached to obsolete technologies and who fear of change. Obsolete technologies destroy jobs. Ignorant customers are why Detroit ignored reality - why GM even stifled a 70 Hp/liter engine technology.

So what other alternative did Detroit (the city) have? Their major industries were promoting destruction of America while remaining in denial - ie still marketing obsolete technology.

As Wagoner told Obama about 2008, GM's only problem is the economy. Nonsense. GM was even selling some cars for $200 less than it cost to build. Detroit's business leaders (GM and Chrysler - not Ford) even in 2008 were that much in denial.

[Clodfobble]

Here's a fascinating slideshow of abandoned facilities in Detroit. The United Artists theater was the most powerful image to me--so ornate and so decrepit at the same time.

[Sundae]

My gosh what a waste!
The sheer scale of those photos is literally inconceivable in this country.

[Clodfobble]

Here's another great pair: mixed in randomly are two shots of the same school, taken one year apart.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Sundae

My gosh what a waste!
The sheer scale of those photos is literally inconceivable in this country.

This country too.

This public library. They even left books on the shelves.

[Sundae]

I'm never sure. I see photos of "ghost towns" in America and it reminds me how much more space you have to live in, that places can just get "lost".

But this, this is staggering.
I'm glad it's not common.

We have our own problem at present in filling offices left over from various boom-times and unsuitable to convert to human habitation because they were built so cheaply. Old schools, churches, factories et al, can and have been converted. Especially in London, and it was happening in Leicester by the time I left.

I will admit I underestimated the scale of things in Detroit.
The apartments, the theatres, the churches, the schools. And they're not worth saving because it's not worth committing the money. I get it a little more now.

[glatt]

I'm a little surprised there isn't more scavenging going on.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Sundae

And they're not worth saving because it's not worth committing the money.

The really crazy thing is that for the most part it's not even worth committing the money to bulldoze them. There have been efforts to just raze large parts of the city and let them go back to countryside, but there are individual holdouts in many neighborhoods who are, for whatever reason, absolutely determined not to move out of their houses, even though every other house on the street is empty and falling apart.

[Sundae]

Same with the office blocks here. We're only a little County Town, but there are wheels within wheels.
Less about residents and more about property companies owned by property companies, owned by conglomerates, backed by investment funds etc etc etc.

So in the mean time the places slowly fall apart (on a tiny scale compared to Detroit) because the ultimate owners hope that Godzilla will turn up and stomp them flat and they can just throw their hands up and say, "Who'da thought?!"

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by glatt

This public library. They even left books on the shelves.

Originally Posted by glatt

I'm a little surprised there isn't more scavenging going on.

I recently saw that 47% of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate. Why scavenge a doorstop?

Seriously the decay of Detroit is scary. This isn't a little mining town that faded when the silver ran out, this is a major bloody city.
If it were a stand-alone entity, a Somalia-like collapse would be quite plausible. Being part of the US, it shouldn't go like that; the rest of the country can provide enough support to maintain a semblance of civil life ... but what happens if three, four, ten US cities go the same way? At what point can the US no longer hold it's act together as a socially and economically developed society?

And then what?

How many spare rooms are there in Grifftopia?

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

How many spare rooms are there in Grifftopia?

Not knocking Grifftopia. But I'll be at Ali's Dad's farm I think.

Or whatever commune 'Spode can get together. Not that you can rely on damned hippies to get organised. But you can bet that's where the sex will be at.

Or of course my always go-to in times of trouble; Wolf.
This pacifist will accept a gun might be needed at the end of all times. Edgar Wright thinks so, who am I to cavil.

And if it's just gonna happen regardless, I want to be with my Christmasteers and Mr Limey makes four. Assuming my slower moving 'rents have karked it, I want to be with friends.

Wait, how did I get onto this subject...?
I am Cassandra!

[gvidas]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I recently saw that 47% of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate. Why scavenge a doorstop?

That number comes from a study dating to 1993, with a margin of error noted only as "greater than plus minus 5%."

Originally Posted by glatt

I'm a little surprised there isn't more scavenging going on.

There's a huge amount of scrapping. It's actually a really bizarre part of the problem, and a huge industry to boot:

- From one angle, drug users/dealers routinely squat houses, strip it out, then burn it down and move on. Non-owner neighbors are powerless to call the cops, since it isn't their building they're trying to evict someone from.

- From another, brazen dudes will just roll into vacant commercial buildings and pull structural steel out by the truck load. I saw this just yesterday, a block away from Eastern Market. One dude, one bobcat, one trailer. Parked his truck around the corner, worked at it for a day, and then drove off.

- From a third, building owners who want the land to be vacant but happen to own a historically significant building will leave it open to the elements (and scrappers) until they can get an emergency demo permit due to the building's now-imminent threat to public safety.

- From a fourth, people buy buildings (that step is optional) and then pull architecturally significant stonework, woodwork, etc, out and sell it or move it to their out-of-state mansion.


Detroit is a silly complicated mess.

[glatt]

That last one sounds good, actually.

[gvidas]

The building in the linked article is in a Nationally Recognized Historic District. So in that case, it's plainly illegal.

In the not-so-illegal cases, it's another force of entropy dragging the city down for a quick buck. A beautiful old fixer-upper of a house built by some long-dead furniture baron is cool in its own right, but if all the mahogany wainscotting (and everything else of any value) is pulled out and sold across town or across the country, it's that much harder to sell the building; to fix it up; or even to argue against demolishing it.

Detroit is full of structures that in most other places would be refurbished rather than demolishing them. But here, the momentum is solidly behind tearing shit down and building something new. Compounding the problem, rent even in the most in-demand neighborhoods is too low to support high quality renovations.

It's a complicated issue. I'm generally in favor of preserving building stock -- modern buildings rarely are as beautiful, or as solidly built. Old ones have a lot of idiosyncrasies and outright problems, but they're often literally irreplaceable -- they were made by skills that we do not practice anymore. At the same time, there is a point where the number of vacant structures is overwhelming; they are often very dangerous, even just to passers by; and you can't compel other people to spend their money on projects they don't support.

In fact, that's actually the underlying challenge with this town: it's so damn complicated and inter-dependent. It's impossible to find a single overarching solution, or even a clear solution to a discrete problem. A lot of horrible solutions -- short-sighted money grabs or just plain foolishness -- are proposed (and often attempted.) Which leads to a ton of inertia against doing anything unless it's known to succeed, since there's no need for more fuckedupedness. Which is basically just the road to stagnation, which at this point is really just active, accelerated decay.