Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anybody remember the movie 'Escape from New York'?

Is Detroit the example of what this country is going to look like after we go broke?

Just watch the News here, all they talk about, Is how Detroit is rebuilding, How Great it is ect, right after they say how many were killed, shot, raped, during the day. at least 3-7 a day, some days more! Im 12 miles south of this mess, and want out if and when I can.

Often it is best to scratch the dirt before you rebuild. Instead of piece meal simply doze the entire areas to dirt and start over, but only build when the private capitol calls for it. Beyond the complete elimination of whole neighborhoods,to include roads and everything, no public funds whatsoever. So doze it flat, seed it and let it go until someone sees fit to invest in it. Like an old strip mine.

They're doing it now. I saw a news story not long ago about how they're FARMING large areas of the former slums of Detroit.

They're doing it now. I saw a news story not long ago about how they're FARMING large areas of the former slums of Detroit.

The decay of Detroit was caused by a number of factors, a couple of which are mentioned in the link provided. It is a sad tale but actually somewhat fascinating if you research it. The "white flight", the destruction of several black neighborhoods to make room for the construction of I-75, and a terrible riot in 1967 that was actually caused by an incident involving poor judgement by some Detroit LE are just a few factors. But IMHO the coup-de-gras was fired by the UAW.

I was born and raised in Flint. The birthplace of GM. In Flint and Detroit, all the auto factories were old as dirt. In the 60's, GM wanted to modernize. Much of this was going to entail the installation of machinery that would take the place of some of the workers. The local UAW in these areas opposed this idea at every turn. Then in the early 70's gas prices skyrocketed, sales declined, and GM really started to feel the pinch.

In the early 70's, over about a two year period, GM closed 4 car factories in Flint. In a city of 200,000 people...45,000 were suddenly without a job.

I don't remember the numbers of factories and jobs lost in Detroit. But the downhill slide was already underway. The closing of these factories put a rocket booster on it. In the late 60's Detroit's population was somewhere around 1.5 - 1.6 million. Now it is less than half that.

Truth be told, though, Detroit was always a pretty mean place. Since 1955 there have been more than a million homicides in Detroit. More than any other city in the world, including Baghdad. I lived in Detroit, in an old part of town, for 3 months in the spring of 1974. I was nineteen years old and already knew a little about the streets. I got a college degree in street smarts in those three months.