# Detroit bankrupt
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 18, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879 "2013-07-18T20:45:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/41 "2013-07-19T18:12:35Z")
> [@Sunspace](#):
>
> A thread I started a while ago: [Why did Detroit decline relative to Chicago and Toronto?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=506603)
I just read that whole thread. Coleman Young’s name came up a few times. His wiki seems to paint a pretty good picture of him as mayor, if a little salty. What did he do that made people think he was part of Detroit’s white flight and downfall?
---
### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/42 "2013-07-19T19:13:38Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#):
>
> I just read that whole thread. Coleman Young’s name came up a few times. His wiki seems to paint a pretty good picture of him as mayor, if a little salty. What did he do that made people think he was part of Detroit’s white flight and downfall?
Coleman Young was in many ways a lightning rod. His rule was corrupt, and he broke up the “old boy” hiring system in the Fired Dept. , Police Dept, School Dept. this was a legitimate issue, and black people never had a chance at these jobs. But the massive corruption and cronyism under his watch is also his legacy-this did a great deal to add to the citie’s decline.
---
### Author:  [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/43 "2013-07-19T19:16:32Z")
It’s all a ruse in order to keep the incompetent Governor during re-election. If he can shift the blame to Detroit he has a better chance of winning in 2014; you see while most Michiganders despise having the new anti-union laws, they are all united in their hatred for Detroit. Unfortunately, in the early 1990’s, the Michigan legislature passed a law changing the way money was awarded to municipalities, leaving Detroit with less and less revenue sharing every year since then.
It’s frustrating that that the government has reduced the amount of money to Detroit by nearly a [quarter of a billion dollars](http://www.freep.com/article/20130318/OPINION05/130318051/Inside-handshake-deal-state-haunts-Detroit-analysis-by-Bridge-Magazine-) yet we increase the amount of money we give to these tin-pot Middle Eastern countries. For example, the the State of Michigan cut the amount of money to Detroit by [$66 million](http://www.detroitmi.gov/Portals/0/docs/finance/CAFR/Final%202012%20Detroit%20Financial%20Statements.pdf) from 2011 to 2012, yet taxpayers gave the Israeli government $3.1 billion dollars. In other words, my friend, we’re stealing from the poorest of our country to give the richest of an _already_ rich and prosperous country. That’s a damn poor bargain if you ask me.
Unfortunately, Michiganders will lap it up and we’ll begin to pen a new chapter in American history where government officials will take a bankrupt city and sell piece-by-piece it to the highest private bidder. Now, make no mistake about it, turning the city into a city-wide parable of Chicago Parking Meters LLC will gentrify the city with improved roads and lights; however, it will be citizens who’ll needlessly bear the increased utility bills, bus fare prices, and price hikes.
- Honesty
---
### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/44 "2013-07-19T19:28:11Z")
So what _should_ the new manager of Detroit do?
I think that the overall plan should be to adapt the city to its present population.
Would it be possible to move people so that they were in compact neighbourhoods, and return the areas between to countryside? That way services to the new neighbourhoods could be repaired, and services to the intervening areas could be stopped. That might be cheaper in the long run, but would the transition be too expensive? Is it even legally possible to move people around like that? And would they want to move?
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### Author:  [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/45 "2013-07-19T19:43:22Z")
> [@Diceman](#):
>
> There have been plans to privatize the water and lighting departments, and under bankruptcy these will probably be realized.
Water I can see, it has a revenue stream like any other utility. However, the city lighting department is presumably the streetlamps rather than the electric utility because that’s already [a private company](https://www2.dteenergy.com). So how would the electric privatization work?!
> [@](#):
>
> The city would save money by dumping the bloated beaurocracy that comes with these departments and hiring a company to manage these services instead.
Omni Consumer Products? :eek:😛
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### Author:  [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/46 "2013-07-19T19:43:29Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#):
>
> I just read that whole thread. Coleman Young’s name came up a few times. His wiki seems to paint a pretty good picture of him as mayor, if a little salty. What did he do that made people think he was part of Detroit’s white flight and downfall?
Three things:
(1) He’s largely responsible for the corrupt & cronyistic system that just landed Kwame Kilpatric in jail. Nobody wants to do business in Detroit because they don’t want to deal with shady public officials asking for bribes & kickback.
(2) He was racist. Rather than try to encourage whites to stay, he was at best indifferent to white flight, and at worst you got the impression he was happy about it.
(3) He was content to be a slum lord. He didn’t do anything to try to improve Detroit. He just sat around and watched everything rot.
---
### Author:  [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/47 "2013-07-19T19:47:11Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#):
>
> Water I can see, it has a revenue stream like any other utility. However, the city lighting department is presumably the streetlamps rather than the electric utility because that’s already [a private company](https://www2.dteenergy.com). So how would the electric privatization work?!
I think the idea is that the city would pay a company to maintain the system. The savings would come from the fact that you aren’t paying public employee wages & benefits.
---
### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/48 "2013-07-19T19:54:41Z")
> [@adaher](#):
>
> The decline of the auto industry was a factor. Also a factor was government corruption, the highest murder rate in the country, and high taxes for poor services.
>
> Even if the auto industry was at 1960 levels, there still would have been major flight out of the city and people would have just commuted. Well off people do not live in high crime areas and auto workers are pretty darn well off.
>
> When I lived in Louisville, I knew people who worked at the Ford plant. Very few lived in Louisville, and Louisville is a heck of a lot better than Detroit.
White flight began after the Great Migration to industrialized cities from the South and accelerated over the succeeding decades. Detroit was a mecca of jobs and good pay. Unfortunately for those migrating north, they didn’t realize that Michigan and Detroit openly allowed housing discrimination, which meant that even union employees with good paychecks were forced to live mostly in what rapidly became ghettos. Where there are ghettos, there is higher crime. As these areas grew and spread over the decades, and violent crime increased, those who could do so fled to the suburbs, thus reducing the tax base and causing a dramatic decrease in existing property values.
Then the car industry began to leave town, even after negotiating union salaries down to about $14/hour. When they left, supporting businesses failed, further reducing revenue and resulting in large tracts of abandoned buildings, which were subject to arson as well as looting of copper, steel and other commodities, rendering the buildings even less viable.
Then there was the corruption in government, with people like Monica Conyers (and her husband) taking bribes from companies with business before the city. Funds for essential services such as fire and police were diverted to pet projects or just ended up in the pockets of politicians.
The notion that it was socialism (mentioned above somewhere) is simplistic and silly. It was greed, corruption and good old racism that helped do in Detroit, and it’s probably coming to a large city near you all.
---
### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/49 "2013-07-19T19:55:46Z")
> [@Honesty](#):
>
> Now, make no mistake about it, turning the city into a city-wide parable of Chicago Parking Meters LLC will gentrify the city with improved roads and lights; however, it will be citizens who’ll needlessly bear the increased utility bills, bus fare prices, and price hikes.
Your actually claiming that’s a bad thing? If you _could_ gentrify Detroit, so it isn’t a warzone, and there are actual jobs and stores available,just by privatizing utilities, you’d rather keep the status quo?
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### Author:  [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/50 "2013-07-19T20:17:43Z")
> [@wolfman](#):
>
> Your actually claiming that’s a bad thing? If you _could_ gentrify Detroit, so it isn’t a warzone, and there are actual jobs and stores available,just by privatizing utilities, you’d rather keep the status quo?
it’s just a parroting of the city council script. “We’re blameless, everybody owes us something, the state is trying to steal everything from us.” Nobody seemed to bitch when Granholm appointed emergency managers for Benton Harbor, Ecorse, and Pontiac.
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### Author:  [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/51 "2013-07-19T20:53:17Z")
A fun development: a Michigan judge just ordered the appointed city manager and the governor to withdraw the bankruptcy application, due to it being contrary to Michigan Constitution. Don’t have a link since I just heard it on the radio driving in.
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### Author:  [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/52 "2013-07-19T20:56:21Z")
What does that mean? They can’t go bankrupt by law?
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/53 "2013-07-19T20:58:04Z")
> [@fudrucker](#):
>
> Detroit failed because of forced socialistic policies.\
Maybe they failed because they weren’t socialist _enough_.
> [@jz78817](#):
>
> \
> I don’t hold the people sitting there now (Mayor Bing and the current council) responsible for Detroit’s condition. I _do_ hold them responsible for thinking it’s better for them to captain a sinking ship all the way down than it is to let someone else steer for a while and right the ship. The idiocy with the Belle Isle proposal was proof of that.
That’s the overall impression I got watching the documentary - all levels of citizens of Detroit were not dealing with reality.
> [@Sunspace](#):
>
> So what _should_ the new manager of Detroit do?
>
> I think that the overall plan should be to adapt the city to its present population.
>
> Would it be possible to move people so that they were in compact neighbourhoods, and return the areas between to countryside? That way services to the new neighbourhoods could be repaired, and services to the intervening areas could be stopped. That might be cheaper in the long run, but would the transition be too expensive? Is it even legally possible to move people around like that? And would they want to move?
Good questions. It seems like a no-brainer to me that you can’t have people living one family per block and expect to have the same level of services as a properly full city, but who wants to be told you have to move somewhere else - that you have no choice in it?
---
### Author:  [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/54 "2013-07-19T21:03:29Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#):
>
> What does that mean? They can’t go bankrupt by law?
Apparently Michigan constitution has some clause about municipal pensions (talk about micromanagement), and since those are in danger from the bankruptcy…
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/55 "2013-07-19T21:04:07Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#):
>
> What does that mean? They can’t go bankrupt by law?
Especially since it is a state court saying you can’t file in Federal court, I have no idea how that works.
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/56 "2013-07-19T21:07:47Z")
Wow, that just gets more and more complicated.
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### Author:  [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/57 "2013-07-19T21:08:10Z")
> [@wolfman](#):
>
> Especially since it is a state court saying you can’t file in Federal court, I have no idea how that works.
Well, the way it was explained on NPR (I think that’s what I was listening to), the bankruptcy application was very hastily submitted yesterday _because_ there was a big hearing today in lawsuits from some pensioners and pension funds where the judge was asked to order the manager not to submit bankruptcy papers. The manager and the governor did an end run and filed it literally hours before the hearing, and the chapter 9 bankruptcy ends any and all litigation against the city. The judge got pissed, and issued the ruling.
Now there is a question whether a state judge can order state officials to withdraw federal bankruptcy papers 🙂
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/58 "2013-07-19T21:31:33Z")
> [@Terr](#):
>
> Well, the way it was explained on NPR (I think that’s what I was listening to), the bankruptcy application was very hastily submitted yesterday _because_ there was a big hearing today in lawsuits from some pensioners and pension funds where the judge was asked to order the manager not to submit bankruptcy papers. The manager and the governor did an end run and filed it literally hours before the hearing, and the chapter 9 bankruptcy ends any and all litigation against the city. The judge got pissed, and issued the ruling.
>
> Now there is a question whether a state judge can order state officials to withdraw federal bankruptcy papers 🙂
Like I said, the lawyers are going to get rich.
EM :First! I win.
Pensioners. Nuh Uh, I’ll get mom to say you can’t do that
EM: Oh yeah, I’m gonna get dad to say that mom can’t say that I can’t do it.
---
### Author:  [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/59 "2013-07-19T21:33:28Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> Coleman Young was in many ways a lightning rod. His rule was corrupt, and he broke up the “old boy” hiring system in the Fired Dept. , Police Dept, School Dept. this was a legitimate issue, and black people never had a chance at these jobs. But the massive corruption and cronyism under his watch is also his legacy-this did a great deal to add to the citie’s decline.
I was surprised it took so long for someone to mention Coleman Young’s role in this. I guess he isn’t very well known outside of Detroit?
My opinion as someone who was born in Detroit is that Detroit’s government corruption and severe racial tension were the biggest factors in sending it down this road. The racial tension often takes the form of “city vs. suburbs” there.
Doesn’t anyone remember the Detroit race riots? I think that was a huge blow to the city’s image and scared a lot of whites into wanting nothing to do with the city proper:
[1967 Detroit riot - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot#Aftermath)
---
### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/detroit-bankrupt/663879/60 "2013-07-19T21:42:13Z")
> [@Chefguy](#):
>
> White flight began after the Great Migration to industrialized cities from the South and accelerated over the succeeding decades. Detroit was a mecca of jobs and good pay. Unfortunately for those migrating north, they didn’t realize that Michigan and Detroit openly allowed housing discrimination, which meant that even union employees with good paychecks were forced to live mostly in what rapidly became ghettos. Where there are ghettos, there is higher crime. As these areas grew and spread over the decades, and violent crime increased, those who could do so fled to the suburbs, thus reducing the tax base and causing a dramatic decrease in existing property values.
>
> Then the car industry began to leave town, even after negotiating union salaries down to about $14/hour. When they left, supporting businesses failed, further reducing revenue and resulting in large tracts of abandoned buildings, which were subject to arson as well as looting of copper, steel and other commodities, rendering the buildings even less viable.
>
> Then there was the corruption in government, with people like Monica Conyers (and her husband) taking bribes from companies with business before the city. Funds for essential services such as fire and police were diverted to pet projects or just ended up in the pockets of politicians.
>
> The notion that it was socialism (mentioned above somewhere) is simplistic and silly. It was greed, corruption and good old racism that helped do in Detroit, and it’s probably coming to a large city near you all.
If auto plants in Detroit were paying $14.00/hour-why didn’t the Japanese and Koreans and Germans build plants there?
It had to be the UAW work rules.
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