Most of the bad stuff written about the city is true. The population will continue to decline and the physical environment will continue to vanish. And I don’t blame a soul for wanting to move away. But the city is rewarding in many subtle and unexpected ways once one has some time to explore and make some connections in it. I think there are many, many people living here who work to make it “come back”, even though it will never come back as a measure of what it was half a century ago.

My neighborhood is at the very earliest stages of returning to farming, believe it or not, which is what it was in the 1800s anyway. Now I can buy produce or eggs from my neighbors, and get an incredible salad half-composed of city-grown vegetables at the local cafe. The reputation of higher crime in the city causes people on my street to be nosier and watch out for one another, which has the remarkable benefit of making the neighborhood more humane than the suburban neighborhoods I’ve lived in before.

The downside of the slope can be as enjoyable as the upside. Keep that in mind, Rest of America, when the mall closes and there’s no money to repair the roads and half of the houses on your street must be torn down. None of this really matters as long as you’re happy.

Foreign auto makers simply don’t have to deal with this problem. Their workers have health insurance as a national birth right. It still amazes me how people love to say “America is the greatest nation in the world”, yet have no answer when you ask them how they could let their fellow citizens die or fall into bankruptcy because they got sick. We have the technology and the capacity to help, but we don’t because “We don’t want the government interfering with my health care”. I simply can’t agree that we’re the greatest nation in the world when we neglect those of us who need the most help.

Back to the point…Without comprehensive health care reform in this country these companies(and many others not in the auto industry) will fail, with or without a bail out. When industry has to subsidize an entire nations health care, and they have to pass that cost on to consumers, there is NO way to compete in a global economy against others who don’t have this problem. The only companies that will be able to compete are ones who aren’t burdened with health care obligations.

These $72/hr union worker numbers you here pushed around in the media are a joke. That number includes the cost of retiree health care. Let the nation as a whole carry the burden of the cost of health care, instead of bankrupting the families and companies that USED to be able to afford it.

I’m willing to let GM, Chrysler, and Ford fail instead. There’s still Toyota, Honda, VW, BMW, Kia, Volvo, etc. It’s not like the world is running out of car companies; there’s no shortage of cars.

Can’t let that one pass, ZUZU. That’s harsh, cold hearted and unnecessary.

But I do wonder what happens when large regions fail (think crop belt dust storms) and significant populations go on the move in this day and age where there’s less room to move into. There’s really no frontier bad lands any more to colonise. So, what happens if the water shortage in the SW gets *really* bad, say? Can the USA actually cope with 50-100 million moving 2000 miles to find a better place to live?

But it’s more interesting as a case for what happens NEXT.

Detroit has been in a down cycle for 27 years (since the Reagan-era recession) and in a steep decline for 8.

Here are some areas that people here are messing with in a very sci-fi time of experimentation and figuring out as you go:

* land use. The metro area has vast stretches of abandoned space. Artists usually take up low income areas, but here we’re talking about *square miles* of abandonment. Urban forests, massive squatting, and city gardening are already happening.

* planning. When things are really bad, you can get people into conversations that wouldn’t happen before. Unlike most sane places, Detroit-area governments all have their own budgets so have rarely cooperated on big ticket items. Now’s a good time to cut deals on water (Detroit has the largest public water system in the world – to serve its giant breadth.)

* art. You can build a big art project that would be impossible in any other city. (See http://www.detroitdreamproject.org/ and others) Detroit still has a better music scene than even the most coolest cities… check out http://metrotimes.com/blowout/). You can film really cool sci-fi movies here on no budget.

I wish I could say the same of my company, alas we get a significant chunk of our income from one customer. Dangerous.

As for having to drive: You only “have to drive” because you made your cities that way. Around here, cars are optional for everyday living, as everything can be accessed by public transit or by bike, even from the suburbs. We don’t have a car, but occasionally borrows one if we are to go far or have to schlep stuff. I like it that way, and being like that would be a top priority for where I would want to live if we were to move back to the US.

Now my partner and I drive Hondas, and I’m guessing that the Vega experience has something to do with it. Unfortunately, I really doubt there’s anything that could get me to buy an American car; it would certainly take consistent excellence.

These benefits are obviously factored into the “labour cost” breakdown and are a liability in terms of the global auto market.

This liability could be easily addressed if the US would just implement a universal heath care system.

What you may find embarrassing about it is sort of what we found fascinating. The bonus was that it was only 50 cents a ride.

Great closing paragraph, Hunchentoot :)

At least you can no longer say it is the union bringing down the Detroit companies, right? I mean it was the UAW that put Toyota in the worst financial position in 70+ years? What, No? STFU.

Brazil Defies Global Economic Downturn

Funny how that works. Social Democratic economies like Brazil and Sweden are doing relatively ok. Imagine that.

If Detroit is the canary in the coal mine for America’s cities, then one only has to look to Mexico to see the egg that canary hatched from. Rampant government corruption and a citizenry cursed with toxic narcissism are at the heart of many of Detroit’s current problems.

Those trying to do good and save the city are the true minority in Detroit. A very real tragedy.

You have the Electronic Music Festival (aka Movement) in May which attracts people from all over the world.

There’s the Comerica Cityfest over the Fourth of July weekend, where the streets in the New Center area are closed off and four stages host a bunch of bands. Local restaurants set up tents where you can sample their foods (for a price, of course).

Pontiac has a similar festival (Arts, Beats, and Eats) over Labor Day Weekend.

Sure, Detroit may be in decay, but there are lots of young people here who like art, music, and alcohol, and have the money to spend. I encourage those of you who have never been to come experience the city during one of these festivals. You’ll see a different side of Detroit from what you normally see in the headlines.

On a side note, for those of you interested in this sort of thing, I’ve spent hours and hours scouring the pictures on DetroitYes.com. They document a lot of the major abandoned buildings and those that have since been demolished. Great website.

The US Auto companies have problems with priorities. They don’t value design and engineering and it shows. There is real competition for engineering jobs in the world, and the Auto companies chose not to play. Also, having worked on both sides of the blue/white collar world at the those companies, I can tell you that the management of American auto companies is more interested in waging war on it’s employees than the competition. Easier to point the finger at anonymous line workers who you’ve spent decades vilifying in the media, than to own up to mistakes in product or realistically evaluating yourself against a Toyota. Because that would point back to strategic management mistakes, and management won’t tolerate that. Now they have the problem of taking government money and certain Senators that have a financial interest in seeing them fail will merrily walk them down the road of the Auto companies’ own rhetoric to failure.

General Motors didn’t build Detroit, Detroit built General Motors.

Make all the excuses you like, bottom line is you do not NEED to drive.

I’ve heard similar things about unionized trades in the film industry, who are often characterized as earning unrealistically high wages. In your typical $100MM-$200MM movie, what fraction of the total costs come from labor?

It reminds me of the debate over fairtrade coffee. Making a Starbucks coffee fairtrade changes the cost of selling it by less than a cent, because the cost of labor for the coffee pickers is a nearly invisible proportion of the total cost of the coffee by the time it gets into your hands.

When we debate about wages and goods, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that for many categories of high tech or heavily processed goods, labor — even well-compensated labor — hardly contributes to the overall cost of the product or service.

All things usually go well – bad people are just very good at fucking things up.

We need to drive – unless you want to break up our western urbanized living into village sized farming communities then yes – we have to drive.

Try telling someone who lives in Prince George B.C that he doesn’t need to drive to get goods.

What we need are cars we can still fix in our own garages.

Abusive income and property taxes : check
Insulting legislation : check
Sissy fight between unions and companies : check
Out of control crime rate (well before everyone left): check
Apologists that refuse to see the damage done by the protectionist policies of both the Unions AND the Companies.

Union workers that either won’t or can’t re-train.: check. There is no excuse for this. NONE.
I’m re-training out of the dead IT admin industry (getting tired of only being paid $9 – $12 /hour to fix servers with no over time and no benefits and being completely expendable as soon as the economy goes to crap).

Manufacturing dead in America? Has your industry moved to countries where slave labor is normal? Do something else, anything else. Mop floors, fix cars, learn to be a male nurse, male OBGYN, ambulance driver (please don’t drink and drive as that seems to be a chronic problem in Charleston, SC), and well anything else. Can’t drive to college, try online colleges. Can’t pay for college, try financial aid (college loans, re-training scholarships). Go to the financial aid office in any college and find out when the deadlines are (do this at least a semester in advance as its usually 6 months before the semester starts).

Detroit has stood as an flagship for American destructability since the 80′s.

@3 – You’re probably just trolling, but I can’t see something that banal and not respond to it.

How do you suppose ~98% of everything you own came to be within your grasp? What about emergency services and their response times? What about making it easier to expand society’s borders, feed everyone and gather the supplies to build adequate homes at a reasonable pace?

Yes, we do need to drive. If you still don’t get it, then do us all a favor and move out to the Canadian wilderness for a few years. Show us how it’s done, man. Come on.

about 16-30 hours labor to assemble a car. Average wage is about $30/hr. So percentage of the price that pays the folks on the assembly line isn’t huge. Of course, you have to pay the people who design the cars, sell the cars, etc.