Damn. What a trip. Detroit used to be a city larger than Los Angeles. It used to be one of the industrial capitals of the world, and I'm not talking about 75 year ago, we're talking about 20-25 years ago. Look at how Korean car companies have swooped in on America's domestic low-budget market. People used to buy broke Fords and GMs. Now they buy Kia. European and Japanese luxury cars also took over the high-end which used to be dominated by American brands like Lincoln and Buick.
The city has literally been a shell of itself. The population has dropped 90% from his highest point. 10% base population can't possibly afford to support a world-sized metropolis. Its also a noticeable failure of a black city. Detroit was a sizable black city on its own right, but now? Folks have moved out because of a lack of opportunity. Jim Crow wasn't defeated by activists and marches, they played their part, but Jim Crow was defeated by mass migration to urban centers for decent employment. Black folks could make an honest living in Detroit, or Chicago, or New York, or even Los Angeles during the industrial boom from 1915-1955. Now? Detroit has collapsed, Chicago is becoming one of the nations most violent cities, strongly resembling early 1990s Los Angeles in crime and political ineptitude. Detroit has probably more empty buildings, both industrial and residential, than collapsed Soviet era cities..
What a shame. When Vallejo became the first city in the US to declare bankruptcy, Detroit was never on the radar, even as struggling as it was then just a few years ago.
Americans. Time to pay the piper. A system build on exploitation has moved on to exploit different peoples and lands. Now America has its reach in the economies of Asia and the Americas. We don't need to exploit American labor, we can exploit foreign workers for even MORE profits, meanwhile classic American urban centers collapse under their own weight while big corporations are proportionally even WEALTHIER than they were a hundred years ago in the Gilded Era of Robber Barons.
