Both of you are as wrong as can be. Detroit's downfall started about 1900. Planning, or the lack thereof for more than a century, is why Detroit stands out. While cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles (don’t laugh – Detroit and LA essentially boomed at the same time) put a premium on creating pleasant built environments for their residents, Detroit was unique in putting all its eggs in the corporate caretaker basket. Once the auto industry became established in Detroit, political and business leaders abdicated their responsibility on sound urban planning and design, and elected to let the booming economy do the work for them.
Detroit became just a big manufacturing plant. Instead of Bellaire and West University Detroit had GM and Ford plants, instead of River Oaks and Memorial you had a city that is relentlessly covered with small, Cape Cod-style, 3-bedroom and one-bath single family homes on slabs that were not in keeping with contemporary standards for size and quality. Detroit may have one of the greatest concentrations of post-World War II tract housing of any major U.S. city. Where did all the rich and the middle class go? Out to the 'burbs which left Detroit with no tax base.
All in all it did not matter who was in control of the city, events put in place from 1900 to 1950 created what you see today.
Originally Posted by BigLouie
Wow.
You go all the way back to 1900 to find the root cause of the problem. And in the intervening 110 years, not a SINGLE person - politician or otherwise - could point out the problem and push the city in the right direction.
Dallas had nobody living downtown 20 years ago. Now, there are tens of thousands living downtown and more projects are going up all the time. Construction is going on everywhere. And that's just in 20 years.
Are saying Detroit and the state of Michigan could not have done something similar?