I am fascinated by the rise and decline of cities. As we all know, thye city of Detroit offers some horrifying lessons of what ubran decline can lead to. It was once a city of over 2 million, with a flourishing economy and a vibarnt downtown-that was in the late 1950’s. Now (as we all know) Detroit is a terrible place, with over 60,000 abandoned houses. Mosyt of the downtown is abandoned., and trash is dumped on the streets.
With this in mind, what could cause present day Beverly Hills to become like Detroit? Could it ever happen?
Of course, just by virtue of its climate, Beverly Hills would always be a desireable place to live…could it ever become a slum like Detroit?
Just ran in the Free Press Marathon. 100% of the hotel space occupied, downtown restaurants and bars packed, well-organized and well-attended events at Cobo, the course was gorgeous and many residents of Corktown (a downtown neighborhood!) were on the street cheering and offering encouragement.
Yes, Detroit has problems. The same ones most big cities do. Crime, corruption, bad schools, shrinking tax base…absolutely. But for Christ’s sake, if that was ALL they had, the city would have been a complete moonscape by now, all businesses and residents gone. It isn’t. There’s a lot more to offer than that, but there’s no upside to the media reporting anything encouraging.
Detroit has slums, but Detroit is not a slum. You can keep Beverly Hills. Go Tigers!
When the Clampetts move in.
Well, Detroit declined due, in large part, to the troubles in the automotive industry. So if the entertainment industry were to suffer serious trouble, Beverly Hills would be less desirable. Money from Hollywood is prevalent in the area, from actors to studio execs to people who run tangentally related companies (law firms that cater to the industry, bankers, plastic surgeons 
…)
If there were an overarching cultural taste shift meaning that most all people with money in the area preferred to live elsewhere, BH would go downhill. This, on a much smaller scale, is happening with some suburbs vs urban neighborhoods. Urban living is becoming more popular, so urban neighborhoods are gentrifying, driving out the slum-like elements in these neighborhoods. Meanwhile, some types of suburbs are less popular and are becoming more like the urban neighborhoods used to be.