this is venturing into IMO, but if the claimed benefits of the film incentives aren’t materializing, then they should be scuttled. I don’t know why the entertainment industry seems to think they’re entitled to have states/localities underwrite a large portion of their expenses (to the tune of 42%). Do other industries get those kind of incentives?
I’m also unsympathetic in that these companies will pull up stakes and go running to whatever location throws the most money at them to come in. It seems rather whorish.
To be fair, the indictment that Detroit has only seven grocery stores is blatantly false. It may be that there are only seven national chain grocery stores, but I can walk into four huge, full-stocked grocery stores in Mexicantown alone. It’s not the case that they’re overpriced or have lousy quality, either. I frequent one of those grocery stores quite regularly (it’s only a small detour on my way home from work). Most things are cheaper than I can get them at Meijer in Macomb county (especially the Mexican ingredients). Certainly selection is a bit more limited; there aren’t six brands of boxed macarroni and cheese. There’s no store-brand soup. There aren’t a lot of convenience foods at all. But there is a completely full selection of groceries.
As for industry, I think the Chrysler plant is literally the only car plant in Detroit. I work with hundreds of suppliers, and there’s not a single one that has customer service, sales, manufacturing, or any perceivable address in Detroit proper.
For IT, CompuWare made a big splash by moving downtown a few years ago.
That’s just the thing. They WERE materializing, to the tune of an $812 million return on an investment of $127 million, in just the two years after the credits were enacted. (That’s for all of Michigan, not Detroit exclusively.) They had barely gotten started. Snyder’s a fool.
The link to the actual report on that page doesn’t work; here it is instead.
There are no national chain supermarkets in Detroit, although Meijer apparently is planning to build one. (It’s a major chain in Michigan, for those who don’t know the name.)
However, the notion that Detroit has no (or single-digit) grocery stores is absurd. Detroit may be underserved, it may not have stores of the same quality and selection as the suburbs, but it certain has lots of grocery stores. The poorer sections of the city unquestionably need far more good supermarkets but that’s true of every city in the northeast I’m familiar with.
Someone probably took the lack of national chains as a literal lack of stores and started spreading this as a meme. It serves the biases of those who want to believe it, which is the basis of all glurge.
…and then why does Windsor(on the other side of the river) have plenty of national chain grocery stores and no burned out buildings? If an explanation does not “fit”, then it is incorrect. If you can not explain “why not?”,then it is not an explanation.
I see big holes and inconsistencies in everyone’s arguments and theories.
I’ve always assumed that that was in Hamtramck… but checking the Wikipedia indicates that it straddles them both! So, I’ve been corrected.
There was no explanation or theory. We were pointing out that it’s a lie that there aren’t any grocery stores, when clearly there are. :rolleyes:
The explanation you’re probably looking for is, “because Detroit is full of blacks.” Although that’s a simplistic answer in line with your world view, it’s not correct.
How would a picture of a different city (Windsor is, by the way, a shithole by Canadian standards - you do know Windsor’s not in the United States, right?) prove anything about Detroit?
I’m no kind of financial wizard, but wouldn’t it pay off in the long run to buy a bunch of abandoned properties and sit on them for 20 or so years? Real estate is a product that will always become scarcer over time. Real estate in the middle of a city is bound to become more valuable eventually.
Well, to start with, Windsor is in a different country, with different government, different economics, and a different history.
I said before that three structural problems contributed to Detroit’s downfall. Let’s apply them to Windsor.
First, Windsor has had a more diversified economic base than Detroit. Yes, the collapse of the auto industry hurt Windsor - there are only a couple of plants left - but the city didn’t rely on the auto industry as much. In addition, Windsor has always been the Sin City of Canada, a place for Detroiters to get goods illegal in the states. During Prohibition so many boats moved liquor out of Canada that wits said you could walk across from Canada to Detroit without ever getting your feet wet. Windsor has a major casino today along with attractions not available in Detroit. Vice is resilient. I would also guess that the province of Ontario can afford to provide more help than the state of Michigan.
The movement to the suburbs started in Windsor 40 years ago, as I mentioned. The metro area is growing faster than the city. But Windsor is not an independent economic entity. It functions as a satellite city to Detroit and I would argue that the entire metro area operates more under suburban economic logic than city economic logic.
The third element was the flight to the sunbelt. There is really no equivalent to the sunbelt in Canada, although Toronto has certainly gained at the expense of the smaller cities in Ontario. But it’s the inability to pick up and move to the south that’s really the difference. Individuals and companies cannot easily pick up and move to the U.S. Intrastate migration is as easy as cross-town moves.
I doubt that taxes account for much of the difference, since Canada generally has higher taxes than the U.S. Of course, they have better social programs as well, probably one reason why immigration from Canada is so low.
Comparing Windsor and Detroit is comparing apples to oranges (did I mention that Windsor was in Canada? ) but general structural explanations do work well in sorting out the particulars.
Yes it’s totally abandoned, but fenced off; although I guess if you really wanted to you could get in. Another interesting fact about the station is that it’s actually owned by local “colorfull” billionaire Matty Moroun, who is letting the property stay trashed so that he can leverage it in his bid to be the builder/owner of a new international bridge connecting Detroit to Windsor Canada (he already owns the present bridge). I never thought that an indivudual could own something like an international bridge until I came to Detroit.