Do you want to know what the future of America is going to look like? Just check out what is happening to Detroit. The city of Detroit was once one of the greatest industrial cities in the history of the world, but today it is a rotting, decaying, post-apocalyptic hellhole. Nearly half the men are unemployed, nearly half the population is functionally illiterate, more than half of the children are living in poverty and the city government is drowning in debt. As economic conditions have gotten worse, crime has absolutely exploded. Every single night in Detroit there are frightening confrontations between desperate criminals and exasperated homeowners. Unfortunately, the police force in Detroit has been dramatically reduced in size. When the police in Detroit are called, they often show up very late if they even show up at all. Detroit has become a lawless hellhole where violence is the currency of the streets. If you want to survive in Detroit, you better be ready to fight because there are hordes of desperate criminals that are quite eager to take literally everything that you have got. But don't look down on Detroit too much, because what is happening in Detroit will soon be happening all over America.
The following are 20 things we can learn about the future of America from the death of Detroit....
#1 People don't want to live where the stench of failure and decay is constantly in the air. Back in the 1950s, Detroit was a teeming metropolis of approximately 2 million people. According to the 2010 census, only 713,000 people live in Detroit today. The U.S. Census Bureau says that Detroit lost a resident every 22 minutes during the first decade of this century.
#2 When the economy falls apart, desperate people will do desperate things and many homeowners will fight back. Justifiable homicide in Detroit rose by a staggering 79 percent during 2011.
#3 In major cities where people are scrambling just to survive, any confrontation can quickly escalate into a life or death affair. The rate of self-defense killings in Detroit is currently 2200% above the national average.
#4 When there is not enough money to go around, a lot of local governments will choose to cut back on police protection. Ten years ago, there were approximately 5,000 police for the city of Detroit. Today, there are less than 3,000.
#5 The essential social services that you are enjoying today will not always be there in the future. Officials in Detroit recently announced that due to budget constraints, all police stations will be closed to the public for 16 hours a day.
#6 Economic decay is a breeding ground for chaos and violence. Last Friday and Saturday, a total of nine shootings were reported in the city of Detroit.
#7 More Americans than ever are realizing the benefits of self-defense. The following is what 73-year-old Julia Brown recently told the Daily....
The last time Brown, 73, called the Detroit police, they didn’t show up until the next day. So she applied for a permit to carry a handgun and says she’s prepared to use it against the young thugs who have taken over her neighborhood, burglarizing entire blocks, opening fire at will and terrorizing the elderly with impunity.
#8 When crime gets go bad that the police are powerless to stop it, vigilante groups begin to form....
In fact, crime has gotten so bad and the citizens are so frustrated by the lack of police assistance that they have resorted to forming their own organizations to fight back. One group, known as "Detroit 300", was formed after a 90-year-old woman on Detroit's northwest side was brutally raped in August.
#9 When criminals become desperate, they will steal literally anything that is not bolted down. In Detroit today, thieves have stripped so much copper wiring out of the street lights that half of all the lights in some neighborhoods no longer work.
#10 As things fall apart, eventually a time comes when it is not even safe to drive down the road in the middle of the day. 100 bus drivers in Detroit recently refused to drive their routes out of fear of being attacked on the streets. The head of the bus drivers union, Henry Gaffney, said that the drivers were literally "scared for their lives"....
“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.
#11 One of the clearest signs of decline in America is the state of our education system. Only 25 percent of all students in Detroit end up graduating from high school. Many other major cities will soon have graduation rates similar to Detroit.
#12 When local governments run out of money they are forced to make tough choices. After already shutting down dozens of schools, officials in Detroit have announced plans to close down 16 more schools.
#13 A growing percentage of Americans cannot even read or write. This is a very frightening indication of what the future of America could look like. According to one stunning report, 47 percent of all people living in the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.
#14 Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over the United States. Today, 53.6 percent of all children that live in Detroit are living below the poverty line.
#15 The employment situation in America is a lot worse than the government is telling us. An analysis of census figures found that 48.5% of all men living in Detroit from age 20 to age 64 did not have a job in 2008.
#16 When a major city becomes a hellhole, home prices fall like a rock. The median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.
#17 When crime and looting become commonplace, homes in an area can become absolutely worthless. Some homes in Detroit have been sold for a single dollar.
#18 When depression-like conditions exist in an area for a number of years, large numbers of people will move on to greener pastures. As of a few years ago, there were more than 40,000 vacant properties in the city of Detroit.
#19 Just because we have a high standard of living today does not mean that will always be the case. Detroit is just a rotting shell of what it once was, and what is happening to Detroit will happen to much of the rest of America very soon. The following is what one British reporter found during his visit to Detroit....
Much of Detroit is horribly dangerous for its own residents, who in many cases only stay because they have nowhere else to go. Property crime is double the American average, violent crime triple. The isolated, peeling homes, the flooded roads, the clunky, rusted old cars and the neglected front yards amid trees and groin-high grassland make you think you are in rural Alabama, not in one of the greatest industrial cities that ever existed.
#20 When government finances collapse, politicians look for things to sell off and "privatize". Unfortunately, the Detroit city government is so broke that it is now considering selling off some of its most famous assets....
Now, the city of Detroit's most venerable assets — from Belle Isle to the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel — could end up on the auction block as the city fights for its financial life.
Facing mounting debt and the prospect of a state-appointed emergency manager, the city is looking at all options to shed expenses and raise revenue. If city officials can't come up with a viable budget plan, an emergency manager would have the power to sell assets as part of a financial takeover of Detroit.
But Detroit is not alone.
Lots of other cities all over America are flat broke and out of options.
For example, just check out what is happening in Scranton, Pennsylvania....
Mayor Christopher Doherty is blunt when asked about a court order forcing his Pennsylvania city to pay about $30 million in wages withheld from police and firefighters under a state-approved fiscal recovery plan.
“I don’t have the money,” said Doherty, 53. As for the chance of borrowing the cash, more than half of the city’s projected general-fund revenue, he added, “there’s no financial institution that’s going to give me $30 million to pay it.”
The U.S. economy never recovered from the last major financial crisis, and now another one is on the way.
As the economy crumbles, so will the fabric of our society.
The American people are terribly spoiled and they do not possess the character to handle depression-like conditions with grace and dignity.
In the years ahead, we are going to see rampant rioting and looting in our major cities. The crime sprees that we will witness in future years will be absolutely unprecedented.
Things did not have to turn out this way, but unfortunately the consequences of decades of really bad decisions are starting to catch up with us.
So what do you think the future of America will look like? Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....
Here a movie from febr. 2010 about Detroit shown on Dutch television. Almost 95% in english, so give it a try: it visualizes all the things that Michael has been telling to us.
Here a movie from febr. 2010 about Detroit shown on Dutch television. Almost 95% in english, so give it a try: it visualizes all the things that Michael has been telling to us.
http://tegenlicht.vpro.nl/afleveringen/2009-2010/Crisis-als-kans/doorstart-detroit.html
Here pictures from the ruins of Detroit:
http://www.marchandmeffre.com/
Your articles always freak me out
real I opener. I love bringing these points in class
Teacher: What is going on in Greece?
Me: what about here? Justifiable homicide in Detroit rose by a staggering 79 percent during 2011.
Silenced and A for the day. Haha
I wish I could have seen that exchange.
Michael
The partisan arguments here are juvenile. Can we address this as a systemic failure of profit-absorbed greedy capitalism?
Partisan? Hmmm, I think Michael is very objective in this article.
Anyway, capitalism is what made the city great in the first place. It was a teeming industrial metropolis, but the city (and federal) government ruined that amazing potential with their endless regulations and taxation, and drove out the capitalists. Not capitalism’s fault. Recognize corporatism and socialism when you see it. The government poisons everything. See how:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXNRzI64L9Q
Don’t blame this on capitalism. This is strictly greedy unions
Seeing what is happening to Detroit makes me want to cry AND scream.
I’m a native Detroiter myself – born in Harper Hospital on the east side & was one of those 2 million plus counted in the 1950 Census. I left Detroit in the early 70s for work reasons and had not gone back there since 1984.
When I drove through there on my way to Port Huron last September I “made a lap” around the city – got off I-75 downtown, made a loop around the downtown area (the 2 new stadiums look nice as does the RenCen) then went out Michigan Avenue to 12th and up through the 1967 Riot area to Grand River and out to the northwestern part of town where I grew up and went to school.
What a depressing trip. All my old haunts are gone, boarded up or burnt to the ground. The car dealer where I bought my first car (the old “Redford Rambler” on Grand River just west of Evergreen) is nothing but a slab. All the car dealers along the Grand River strip from Evergreen to McNicoles (6 Mile Rd.) are gone, the 16th Precinct Police Station at GR & Mc Nicholes is abandoned and the high school where my cousin graduated is all boarded up (Redford High School, across Grand River from the old police station). My old house on Lasher just north of Grand River is there but the stores in the area are all gone. One would think space aliens had come and taken all the life out of the area.
I could go on for about 10 pages with my observations, but I’ll spare you all from that. What was once a great city has turned into an urban wasteland, and the shame is that it didn’t have to be that way. The present Mayor is a decent fellow and I know he’s doing what he can to try and right things, but I fear it is a task that cannot be done. If I was about 20 years younger I might even think about going back and trying to assist in reviving Detroit, but then a dose of sanity hits me and I put that crazy idea out of my mind.
All I can say to everyone is: Let Detroit be a warning to the rest of you – DO NOT BE COMPLACENT and think the same thing cannot happen where you live. Many Detroiters thought that too decades ago, and we now can see the result up front and damn ugly.
Say a prayer for those that are still there, especially the old folks that, mostly due to economic circumstances, are stuck there. And pray as well that Mayor Bing can at least “stop the bleeding” so that, maybe one day, Detroit can be a city America can be proud of instead of it being the poster boy for decay & defeat.
This will give you an idea what is happening to us. We’re being set up.
http://www.schoolandstate.org/Knowledge/Vouchers/PigsofOkefenokee.htm
I am not one of those who hates our government. Unfortunately we elect bad people to run it. Why do we need a Mitt Romney as president, because he has business experience? Who says that is the best criteria or even a good attribute to start from? Aren’t these the geniuses who have screwed things up continually?
These guys wouldn’t p*** in your a** if your guts were on fire. They don’t represent us!
If you were standing on a corner with a cardboard sign “unemployed, need money for beer” would one of these guys give it to you? NO. But, another unemployed beer drinker would.
The truth is, anyone good family person with a good moral foundation, and some common sense who can balance a checkbook could do the job. I am a high school dropout; I left home at age 17 with the shirt on my back and I retired at age 49.
Of course that is before the Reagans, Bushes, Clintons, Obamas and the Romneys sold us out. I don’t think that is going to be possible in the future.
Our money masters want us to hate our government—they want us to throw it away—so they can give us theirs!
Ask yourself, who are the ones telling us “this form of capitalism” made America great? Wall street good, people bad. Of course the money masters who own and control the media and all the major multi-national corporations do. The high priests of wall street.
I know of ordinary people who became wealthy in small business. These are the real American business. Wall street is owned and controlled, they manipulate the markets, the money, the business cycle and—jobs for their benefit, not ours.
Take a good look at Detroit if you want to see obama’s vision for America’s future. We HAVE to vote him out of office this fall if we want our nation to survive.
Mean Granny,
Obama rescued General Motors and GM has already paid back its loan to the government – not bail out welfare that Wall Street bankers line their greedy pockets with. Obama made the correct decision and now the city is turning around. I understand that this is not what Republicans like to hear. Obama is a good president because he makes good decisions that yield good results!
I cannot imagine your grandchildren are going to respect you too much.
This article greatly offends me. I live in the city of detroit and not once have i come across “lawlesness.” nor would i ever describe this great city as a “hellhole.” i agree that Detroit has seen better times, but it is filled with people who want to make this city as great as it once was. Sure there are criminals within the city limits, but there are just as much as there are in Chicago or New York. The reason everyone thinks Detoroit is such a scary place is people like you, spreading this idea that detroit is a destroyed city fille with crime at every corner. Writing this article will neither stop our current economic situation in detroit nor the united states. Encourage the growth and development of our cities, not tear them down.
P.S. Please visit the city for yourself and do more research before you trash it like you just did.
So you’re offended by the article, but you aren’t offended about living in a city where half the people are functionally illiterate? Where half the men are unemployed? Where half of children are below the poverty line?
Klaos, so you believe the myth? Bet you have never even set one foot inside of the Detroit City Limits.
Irishfb18 is right-on with the synopsis of the City of Detroit. If you have not been to Detroit in the last 2-3 years you will be stunned at the amount of GOOD CHANGE that has taken place. It used to be after business hours in Downtown Detroit the place was like a ghost town, now on any given day you can go downtown and start to see the new beginnings of a bustling city after traditional business hours.
We are lucky because Detroit is an international port and border town. The automobile is not our only way of bringing in big money here. Detroit is doing a mega-turnaround, all for the better.
It is heartbreaking to see. I was born and raised in Detroit. It is devastating to see my old house(I was born in the back bedroom). Windows all broken, plumbing removed so run down it is. Barely recognizable. God help what was once a super great city.
Greed prevailed, and still does, in Detroit___ on all sides. From the greed of the unions and their mafia buddies, to the greed of the corrupt public officials who sold out everyone but themselves, to the greed of the corporation heads who maneuvered constantly to protect their perks and benefits while clamoring about unreasonable union demands and all but executing the white collar workers who stood between them and the rank and file. Follow that path right on down to the gangs and drug lords who support a rich lifestyle with the proceeds gained from selling death and destruction to anyone willing to trade a few minutes of “feel good” for the harder work of facing reality, dealing with problems and working on solutions. Greedy people will follow and support anyone who claims to be able to deliver what they want, when they want it. Greedy people live in the here and now of instant gratification. They do not want to hear about ‘consequences”, they do not want to hear about “personal responsibility”, they just want what they want and they want it now. You can not point a finger in any direction,in Detroit or anywhere else today, without targeting a part of the problem. “We have met the enemy and he is us”. No truer words were ever written.
This article is a GREAT example of propaganda. *****, I am born and raised in the Detroit area and I cannot believe something like this article can really exist until I read it. PLEAS DO NOT BELIEVE all of what is written in this article. If you would like the “whole” truth about the city, please read further. I grew up in the mid 80′s and there was the city government building, the county building, the ren center, and a juvenile justice building, and with the exception of Greektown, that IS IT for what was in the downtown area. Now there are ballparks, condos, high rises, lofts, a re-done eastern market area, an area created from downtown to Wayne Stat University called Midtown, and Three GORGEOUS and vibrant Casinos. The population has actually increased in downtown and midtown area from 30% – 40%. There is a vibrant riverwalk area as well. Several businesses have moved their headquarters to downtown- Compuware, Quiken Loans, Little Caesars / Olympia Entertainment. The crime statistics in the article are COMPLETELY FALSE. The City has actually had declines in violent crime over the past 5 years. There are neighborhoods like Palmer Woods that have million dollar homes, Sherwood Forrest, Indian Village, Boston / Edison district, Woodbridge, and Corktown (which has the #5 rated BBQ joint in the Country according to Food Network). This article begins with a picture of a broken up old house. See the cyclone fence up around it? If you were outside of that house you would see a sign on that fence that states it’s about to be renovated. A number of houses like that have been renovated in that particular area and sell for $450,000 once complete. We have our problems, don’t get me wrong. My piece is to balance out the absolutely REDICULOUS picture painted by the piece of propaganda posted here.
So, please feel free to come to our city and see things for yourself. Or at least do more research on the web to get the truth.
This page makes Detroit look & sound more akin to Beverly Hills CA than a ransacked dump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit
That’s because it is NOT a ransacked dump.
The article you mention is more realistic of Detroit that what the smut-mongers have been touting.
The things is this is going to be happening to a lot of cities in the developed world. This is what we get when we allow banksters and their corrupt governments to implement a system of debt on us. I believe that this is being deliberately done so that these arseholes can control the masses. The war being fought at the moment is not terrorism, it is the war for control over people using money and resources. As Henry Kissinger said, you want to control continents, then control oil, if you want to control people, control food. A former U.S. President James Garfield said, whoever controls the supply of money is the master of all industry and commerce. Hope that gets more of us thinking!!!
How do you have an article on the 20 things destroying Detroit, and never mention RACE? Every city and every country that is majority Black, civilization is ruined. There are no exceptions.
The temperate zone selected for qualities the tropics didn’t: intelligence, self-discipline, and long-term planning. There is no such thing as lying in the service of the Good.
WWII Vet Says Nobody Helped After He Was Carjacked
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=147422806
“I was trying to go in … and see if somebody could call the police and an ambulance because I couldn’t stand. I had to crawl — I tried two or three times to get up,” Brantley said Saturday. He said he was on way home from Bible study when he stopped to put gas in his 2010 Chrysler 200, which he recently bought to replace another car that had been stolen.
“People were passing me just like I wasn’t there. … I was crawling and they just walk by me like I’m not there,” he said.
I lived in Detroit until 2007. I moved out in June 2007 after my high school graduation. I couldn’t stand the atmosphere there. Either it was leftist suburban flower-power-children who had “racist” on their lips or blacks, for who it was tolerant to call you “ass-licken’ crakka”..
It was bad then then what is it now.
I know plenty of young Polish-Americans who have moved out of Detroit. Though not only Detroit, New York and Chicago have also lost Polish-American populations to emigration back to Poland or to the UK.
Somehow we have to make endspeace in this
country where nothing is as it seems. Yeah, the majority of poor Poles today move to the UK as migrant workers, though no one understands why someone would move from the USA here, yet there’s so many of us in Poland.
I sometimes dream of Detroit yet I look at photos of the neighbourhoods I lived in after my departure and see that the city has become even poorer.
I wish all you disenfranchised people move out to Europe. Europeans have a more deregulated market than the USA yet economic free-enterprise is weak. By Europe I mean Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, England, Scotland, Scandinavia and eventually Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary. The Greeks and Italians have gone psycho but the rest of Europe is okay. Europe needs more white Christians. There is no “racism” here and the governments of Europe are closing the borders to Africans and Asians because as current Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated “Multiculturalism is a failed plan”.
Chancellor is what the Germans call their chief executive. The President of Germany is more-or-less the House Chair.
And the people keep saying”The Soldiers are defending our Freedoms”.
Well
Watch Ike’s Military Industrial Complex Speech on Youtube.
And
Smedley Darlington Butler’s Book”War is a Racket” you’ll find out the 2nd reason why Detroit is America’s.
1#reason is Bailout of the ***************** Banksters.
And
American’s are still declaring that”The Soldiers preserve our Freedoms”by fighting in Wars that we have no business being in.
That’s why America is becoming exactly like Detroit!!!
look at the demographics.
Don’t blame unions. The bonus, salary,severance and retirement packages for the executives account for why pensions cannot be funded for workers. why should one exec make 43 mil a year and pay workers $10 an hour. Also we need to bring back manufacturing jobs so a high school graduate can lead an honorable life. Everyone can’t get a Doctorate degree to function in life. The business leaders gutted the manufacturing base to chase quick profits. What a bunch of greedy B……!!!!
Thanks FDR!
What some dont realize either is that the City of Detroit grew very quickly thanks Manufacturing jobs. The city is 143 square miles. By no means was it planned well.Most people that have never been to Detroit seem to think Detroit is only the Downtown area.Many of the houses in Detroit are up to 60-70 years old. Of course they will be crumbling and falling down. The People of Detroit have been fighting with the Mayor’s Office and the City Council for many many years to get the city to start tearing down the buildings,to no avail. Each new Mayor promises to clean up the blight but in the end its all talk.
I was born and raised in Detroit. Graduated from Chadsey High School in 91. Same school my mother and all my Aunts and Uncles graduated from. Thanks to mismanagement Chadsey is now closed and to my knowledge, the city did not hesitate to demolish that building. Even then the streets were safe. Would I drive down there now for a burger at Telaways?? To stand inline behind some prostitute that just did her business out back in the alley?? NO!
I found it disgusting that when the Super Bowl was here, they went all out to clean up the surrounding streets around Ford Field, covered up blight with banners and shuffled off all the homeless to temp shelters so they would not be seen on the streets by tourists.
People began moving out of the Downtown area when they could no longer get the things they needed down there. Residents had to drive 10-20 miles to get groceries. There were no local grocery retailers downtown for decades until just recently. A few small grocers have opened stores Downtown, but have found it difficult to get some suppliers to deliver fresh goods to them.
The first step in getting the City of Detroit back on track is to demolish every single abandoned residential home and business. Yes, its thousands, but it has to be done. Rezoning new commercial and residential areas. Build new parks and recreational areas. this will start bringing in business and create jobs. Who wants to come here and open business surrounded by blight? No one.
Granholm brought the Film Industry to Michigan. Gave them a nice tax incentive and told citizens to go back to school and get re trained in the film industry. Some did. Only to have Snyder come along and nix everything and ran the film industry out of the state. Leaving many with new student loans and no future job in site.
While Detroits City Council sits around on the butts all day everyday b@#ching and complaining about a possible Emergency Manager being appointed, they have done nothing to really come up with any plans on getting the city out of trouble.
It really saddens me to see the city in the state its in from what it once used to be. The city where we stayed out late during the summer riding bikes and talking with neighbors.
When it was actually safe to be out after dark.The city where you could walk to Stan’s Whip and Whirl for Ice Cream at 8 pm and u were safe. Where you could go down to Belle Isle all day and swim, picnic and go to the zoo. The city that hosted the Grand Prix. How the old Wonder Bread Factory off McGraw and Martin filled the neighborhood with the smell of fresh bread every morning. Where Michigan and Trumbell represented the American Dream. That is the Detroit I used to know.
30 plus years of liberal democratic leadership was a large part of this issue. Never can spend enough, or tax enough! This is the mindset that we have heading the country now! Pay attention America! As the liberals make government grow there is not enough of us taxpayers to pay their salaries.
The sad truth is that America is a land of greed brought on by massive materialism. Noone dares mention it but I will. It’s also a land that has turned it’s back on the concept of God. I’m no Rick Santorum, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that the decline in the country seems to be lock-stepped with the decline in respect for God.
Belief in God hurts noone (except victims of those zealous fools who choose to falsely interpret religion and act irrationally on their false pretenses). However, the disbelief in God and even worse, the criminalization of God, has in my opinion, brought on a world of immoral behavior, lust, greed and social disconnect that is resulting in horrible crimes against children, women and even men coast to coast.
Another huge problem is that in it’s lust for power, politicians have created a society that is dependent on it’s handout, and thereby loyal to it. Problem is, we are nearing a precipice where the ability to give to the poor by taking from the hardworking will cause our demise.
The ability to support a nation of takers at the expense of the few remaining creators is nearing it’s end.
If anyone sees a path out of this downward spiral, please come forward. I can’t see how there’s any way. Politicians will continue to deceive….Takers will continue to demand their entitlements and government will continue to punish hard work and creativity and reward entitlement mentality.
At this point, it appears that critical mass has been reached and there are not enough hardworking, responsible Americans left to out vote the damaging part of American society to bring about political salvation…so the decline into hell seems inevitable.
Sad.
AGENDA 21. AGENDA 21, ICLEI and the U.N. (GLOBAL GOVERNMENT)and also the CLUB of Rome (Rockefellers) wants there to be only 2 classes of people, the super-rich GLOBAL ELITES and everyone else will be microchipped slaves in a Global, Cashless monetary system.
The GLOBAL ELITES and Global Government also wants massive DEPOPULATION. For example, there is an American Stonehenge, (GEORGIA GUIDESTONES, ELBERTON, GEORGIA, USA). One of those stones says (“Humanity must be maintained under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature”).
The movie, the HUNGER GAMES seems to follow the AGENDA 21 scheme pretty closely.
Detroit is dead because of blacks (most not all) and unions (you look up who runs unions). After several years of my own research, including interviews with the 40′s generation, this is my conclusion.