The heart breaks:
Click to enlarge.
An out-of-state friend of mine saw Google Earth pictures of Detroit and couldn't believe how much of it had been reclaimed by nature.
"Is Detroit really that bad?" he asked.
Not all of it, of course. Unfortunately, too many parts of it truly are, most of it located in a wide belt astride the city's midsection. There are numerous Garland Streets across Motown's 142 square miles--and no prospect that they will be repopulated any time soon.
If you're in the area, take the Chalmers Street exit (No. 222) off of I-94. Then take Hayes Street directly north. There are blocks upon blocks like Garland, former residential neighborhoods now reverting to forest. With the exception of Outer Drive, there aren't any stable zones until you get to around five blocks south of Eight Mile Road.
What Detroit needs more than anything is people. And that's what she is losing by the literal truckload.
"Is Detroit really that bad?" he asked.
Not all of it, of course. Unfortunately, too many parts of it truly are, most of it located in a wide belt astride the city's midsection. There are numerous Garland Streets across Motown's 142 square miles--and no prospect that they will be repopulated any time soon.
If you're in the area, take the Chalmers Street exit (No. 222) off of I-94. Then take Hayes Street directly north. There are blocks upon blocks like Garland, former residential neighborhoods now reverting to forest. With the exception of Outer Drive, there aren't any stable zones until you get to around five blocks south of Eight Mile Road.
What Detroit needs more than anything is people. And that's what she is losing by the literal truckload.
Greater Detroit has 4 million people. They're just not inclined to live in your core municipality. What the core municipality needs is order, an undisturbed real estate market, access to passable schooling (with a modicum of civility in the school hall ways), and a functioning mass transit system. It would require patient institution building, starting with a federation of your various and sundry municipal police departments with the four county sheriff's departments, increasing overall manpower, and redeploying manpower. Are your suburban residents prepared to pay 90% of the cost for such a police force? Is your state legislature willing to transfer control of the police, the school system, and the transit system to a metropolitan authority and tell the City of Detroit's elected officials and tell them to sod off if they complain?
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