Vacant Detroit becomes dumping ground for the dead

[hack89]

Source: AP

DETROIT (AP) -- Abandoned and neglected parts of Detroit are quickly becoming dumping grounds for the bodies of murder victims. And authorities acknowledge there's little they can do.

At least a dozen bodies have turned up in 12 months, many of them purposely hidden or discarded in alleys, fields and vacant houses or garages. Seven of the dead are believed to have been slain outside Detroit and then dumped within the city.

It's a pattern made possible by more than four decades of urban decay and suburban flight. Many parts of the city are now a vast urban wilderness that is rarely visited by outsiders and infrequently patrolled by police

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DETROIT_DUMPING_THE_DEAD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-08-02-14-33-57

---

Words escape me. They need to bulldoze entire neighborhoods and make the inhabited area of Detroit smaller.

[4th law of robotics]

1. That has been proposed

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-03-10/news/29955619_1_detroit-mayor-dave-bing-entire-city-dan-kildee

As I understand it there is significant opposition. Although I would agree this is probably the best solution. But perhaps not politically feasible.

[fasttense]

2. It should be left alone. Leave it as a monument to cannibal capitalism - free trade, globalization

and trickle down economics.

Maybe if we left it as a monument, those stupid economic theories will never rise up again.

[Citizen Worker]

13. Yes! Detroit is a wasteland long neglected and now discarded.

[sofa king]

15. Now it's the most capitalist place of all.

No government, no rules, no regulations--but plenty of commerce, no doubt. Maybe we should wall it off and send white-collar criminals there.

[jpbollma]

17. Sofa King

it's not really quite that either. There are plenty of regulations, the city has a staggering wall of bureaucracy that really does hurt business. It's taken one poor guy three years just for a permit to have a tree farm on vacant blighted land. The number of agencies and pay for play that you need to go through in Detroit is staggering, it is really big government at it's absolute worst. Corrupt to the core. There is certainly a huge government here in Detroit. There isn't much commerce outside of Downtown/Midtown and the surrounding core, because if you even open a McDonalds in the outer neighborhoods you can't get a dependable work force and people are shot/robbed/killed constantly, meaning you get very little business. White flight and the Auto Industries crippled Detroit, it's own inept corrupt staggering bureaucracy gave it the final push over the cliff. Hopefully the recent events and efforts at revitalization can right the ship.

[Psephos]

25. Those aren't what caused Detroit's downfall.

I've watched the slow motion train wreck my whole life. What you mention didn't help, but you need to dig deeper.

[jpbollma]

26. What do you think put it over the edge or started the decline?

Not trying to sound argumentative things come across flat in text. Just curious!

[msanthrope]

3. We have (had) a contingent here that claimed that clearing stretches of Detroit

was ethnic cleansing and was only being done to make way for urban farms tilled by yuppies. The chief proponent of that CS has been tombstoned, but the old threads are still there.

[jpbollma]

19. ah yes

Probably fans of that toad Joann Watson. Many progressives love her because she is a "socialist". She is a rotten horrible woman who never loses a chance to bring race into everything to scare constituents. She also went for years paying no taxes while trying to raise them on companies who actually wanted to do business in Detroit. That horrible toad will likely be out of office in 2013 because voting will no longer be at large, it will be by district (thank God). She loves having a hopeless ghetto fiefdom to rule over while she lives in Palmer Woods, the most prominent neighborhood in Detroit, and many say the wealthiest African American neighborhood in the US.

[Renew Deal]

4. Reminds me of the 100 year old photos of NYC

There's one where some bodies were found at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134408/Never-seen-photos-100-years-ago-tell-vivid-story-gritty-New-York-City.html

[smirkymonkey]

21. It was even worse some 50 to 75 years earlier, made somewhat familiar in the film

"Gangs of New York", but much more graphically described in the book "Five Points" which was an area down near where many of the government buildings and courthouses are now. It was completely lawless. Even the cops were afraid to go there. Children who grew up there would live underground, sometimes never seeing the light of day until they were teenagers because the streets were so brutal and dangerous.

It's not a very well written book, but contains a lot of interesting facts and anecdotal evidence. New York has gone through so many periods of boom and bust. You would never know it by looking at it today.

[Faygo Kid]

5. My hometown.

Words fail me.

[heaven05]

6. robo cop

looks like the detroit of the robo cop movies. utterly desolate. godbless american capitalism. The car industry built up detroit, built all the shanty towns for the blacks and poor from the south migrating for plant jobs ,inkster, romulus ect. then when the steel mills started closing and auto plants downsized and closed, flint is another wasteland, their were no businesses to pick up slack, except all the R&D areas around detroit, ann arbor, novi and the like. Plant workers by and large don't have those skills. So here we are. Parts of detroit dumping ground for murder victim bodies. Going to hell in a hand basket, slowly almost imperceptibly but sliding down none the less. With the racial politics in michigan, there is a lot going on to exacerbate all urban problems.

[bluestateguy]

7. I agree that whole sections need to be buldozed

I don't really call them neighborhoods because there is nothing left. Then they should be turned into parks.

The people blocking this are people who still think it's the 1950's in Detroit.

[jpbollma]

8. I am moving there in September

That is exactly what is happening. The new Mayor is much better than former Detroit Mayors. he has entered a consent agreement with the city and state to get the city finances back in balance. He has also bulldozed 4500 structures. The governor is going to spend 10 million more on demolitions around schools to make them safer. As much as I dislike Snyder, he actually is putting forth a lot of effort in cleaning up Detroit instead of just handing the corrupt city council more money to embezzle.

The state wants to lease the formerly glorious Belle Isle and make it a state park, charge a small $10 per yr entry fee and use the money to rehab it to it's former glory. Some of the idiots on city council showed up on the island the other day to protest, saying the governor was trying to take blacks back to slavery . That's how these crooks in Detroit get elected. They play to African American racism. There is a city resident John Hantz, who has offered to buy 1900 city lots and create a beautiful orchard farm. It is finally close to going through after three long years, literally city officials said they didn't feel that comfortable selling that much land to a white man .

That all being said, there have been many positive stories recently about Downtown (where I am moving), Midtown, Corktown, Woodbridge, New Center, and Lafayette Park. All wonderful areas at the core of the city, getting massive investment and revitalization. It really looks 100000000 times better than ten years ago in these areas as educated professionals and others also begin moving into these areas and providing a much needed tax base. There are also other great areas of Detroit: East English Village, Indian Villiage, Shorepointe Village, West Village, The Gold Coast, The Riverfront District, Palmer Woods, Rosedale, Sherwood Forest. All of Detroit is NOT what the media likes to run with. It is often lazy journalism. Also, take a look at Chicago, they are really racketing up the crime there! It is out of control, yet the focus is constantly on Detroit. I think Detroit is an easy target for papers, it scares all the white suburbanites from the scary black people.

[jpbollma]

9. And More:

Anything the city council no longer runs, immediately seems to do better! Eastern Market is the countries biggest open air market with five huge sheds and tons of thriving businesses, it attracts about 50-60,000 people every Saturday. it was taken over by a non-city entity and has been thriving and getting continuous improvements. The Detroit Institute of arts was taken away and run by a regional authority..it instantly was improved. The Cobo Arena was in such disrepair it almost closed, a regional authority took it over turned it around completely and is in the middle of a 300 million dollar renovation. Midtown is more run by Midtown Inc. A development corp, than the city. The city does not want Belle Isle to become a state park because it will instantly get better. Everytime this happens it shows how absolutely incompetent and powerless they really are.

[knitter4democracy]

28. Oh, it's not Snyder.

Trust me, all that started before he took office, and it's not Snyder making that happen. It's Detroit making it happen.

Don't get me started on that jerk. He's doing everything he can to destroy Michigan.

[DeSwiss]

32. Thank you.

"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not."

~George Bernard Shaw

K&R

[slackmaster]

10. The man who sits next to me at work grew up there, and says he wants to return some day

After he makes a bunch of money working in California. He has deep roots in Detroit - His father and siblings all work or worked for Ford. As a family member, he qualifies for a substantial discount on Ford products, and the company still has a preferential hiring policy for children of career employees.

The company doesn't have a lot of permanent positions for Web developers.

[jpbollma]

11. Unrelated to Ford

but GM has announced they are moving 3,000 IT workers back to the USA. Many will be in Detroit because a main focus in Downtown right now is IT/computer informations jobs. We have gained a lot of them in the past 2 years.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

12. But the good stories get buried...

http://hantzfarmsdetroit.com/introduction.html

http://hantzfarmsdetroit.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/30/hantz-farms-mike-score-detroit-president_n_1719945.html

[Hestia]

14. Go with me here: You know in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore reported that, what, over

100 million people would be weather refugees? I honestly think it is going to be people living in the southern US who will be migrating, sooner than they think. Y'all have no idea how brutal the summers are becoming, to say nothing of winter. Our average in January this year was 70 degrees. You can actually get a sunburn in February in the car on a long trip. It is getting way too unsustainable to live here any longer. So, we're (collectively) looking to the North to migrate to.

What if a group of like-minded people migrated to, say, a section of Detroit, bought the land very very cheap, de-annexed the land from Detroit and become their own incorporated town/city/whatever? The water & sewer and utility lines are there, correct? Or have they been cannibalized? Get an area that does have utility structures intact. This same group could set up their own public utility structure. Also, as part of the town charter, 20-50% of utilities have to be green (or more!). WiFi would be regulated and free too! Screw AT&T.

Set up all new tax base fairly to live there.

Hey - I'm sure that there will be some great high-powered lawyers who will want to move to this new town.

I personally think the town should not allow vehicles within the town area. Norway & Denmark are setting up towns like this and the people really love it. (I'll go find links). Think of the money saved by not having to pay for stop lights - which I heard run $10k EACH for yearly maintenance. Major savings right there.

Don't allow Big Box stores in to the town, part of the agreement should be to support mom & pops that will have to set up to service the town.

(Personally no tax breaks just for wanting to set up a business. If you do it for one, you'll have to do it for all, then where will we be? Like Detroit?)

The area should:

1. Be close enough to Detroit to use public transportation - bus, subway, etc. for financial purposes - if need be

2. Set up the town structure where people who don't go to the big city to work, stay and grow food for everyone else. Of course, if you want to be a slug, be a slug; but everyone else who wants to eat organic foods will be able to. Overages can be sold at Farmers Markets in the big city or counties. Additional revenue stream for personal pockets and the new town.

I am not all that good at writing out thoughts like this, but do you see where I am headed? Build our own town just like we want it to be without outside interference.

One person can't do this on their own, but a group can. It will have to be regulated size wise too. Over 50k and you get some asshole who'll come in and take over the town council and undo everything that been agreed upon and give his/her cronies tax breaks etc. I will have to be - I figure - 17k - 50k people who will live there.

Does anyone see where I am going with this?

[ozsea1]

16. Having grown up in Detroit

I like your idea very much.

[XemaSab]

20. Welcome to DU!

[Crowman1979]

23. Rip out the freeways that circle downtown as well.

They are just pointless.

[nanabugg]

33. Nice post and I agree with "weather refugees.

Detroit will be back and once the nation gets rapid rail network across the country in and around major urban area it will be grand living in former major cities. Places like Detroit will have jobs, jobs, jobs.

[kwassa]

18. The "vacants" in Baltimore were used to hide the dead in "The Wire"

best tv drama ever made.

A whole season was devoted to a deadly gang that hid all their victims in abandoned houses.

[Crowman1979]

22. Your tax cuts for the rich at work.

[hack89]

24. No - Detroit has been losing population for decades.

has nothing to do with tax cuts and everything to do with a city losing tax payers.

[jpbollma]

27. Many factors brought Detroit to it's current point

White Flight, riots, auto companies leaving, middle tax and upper class tax base leaving due to crime, even more so in the 80's during the crack epidemic, and huge corrupt government. Other cities weathered similar circumstances better than Detroit because they didn't have awful government, but most of all most major cities are not majority black. Detroit is, and suburbanites for many years and even today resent that, and the black residents of Detroit resent the suburbanites. They both blame each other for their problems and never think to sit down and work things out. As I stated unthread, Detroit is NOT a dead city. Many vibrant areas and Detroit has about 725,000 people. That is more than:

New Orleans
Nashville
Atlanta
Cleveland
Cincinnati
Columbus
Grand Rapids
Miami
Orlando
Boston
San Francisco
Knoxville
Memphis

The list goes on. All the cities above are talked about as great cities. Detroit has a population much larger. The Downtown has the most sky scrapers of any Midwest city outside of Chicago and Minneapolis. Detroit can still right the ship.

[hack89]

34. But Detroit has to pay to support infrastructure for a city of 1.5 million

they need to ruthlessly eliminated excess infrastructure.

[lonestarnot]

29. Was there a couple of weeks ago.

[TheDebbieDee]

30. I haven't seen pictures, but it sounds like Detroit is going thru

what large areas of the Bronx and Brooklyn went thru in the 70s and early 80s.

Blocks and blocks, even entire neighborhoods of tumble-down buildings and abandoned apartment buildings. I think these neighborhoods in New York were finally re-habbed and re-populated but not until the late 80s.

[jpbollma]

31. yup

that is happening in Detroit. Certain areas are already going through revitalization. i feel for the people in the bad areas though. It is literally a war zone in those neighborhoods.

[4th law of robotics]

35. Bronx and Brooklyn though had the rest of New York to provide jobs and money

for such a revitalization.

Detroit has only Detroit to fall back on and it's in pretty bad shape.

[wordpix]

36. Sheldon Adelson with his $25 billion could help this city

but of course, he is probably in a tax bracket lower than mine (teacher).