America's famed
Motor City Detroit, once the global headquarters of auto industry that was home
to the Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler), filed for bankruptcy protection after piling up a $18.5 billion debt.
Motown's mournful
decline has been extensively chronicled ever since its manufacturing prowess
decamped abroad, initially to neighbouring Canada and Mexico, and more recently
to China and India. In fact, between 2000 and 2010, Detroit's population dropped by a staggering 25% — it went down from being America's
tenth largest city to 18th — destroying its tax base.
In fact, only about
700,000 people live in Detroit today, less than half its 1950 population. Unemployment rate is over 18% and the city's per capita income is a
measly $15,000 per annum compared to around $ 40,000 for Seattle. The homicide
rate is at historically high levels; the city has been named among America's most
dangerous for more than 20 years. No wonder, the city has 78,000 abandoned structures.
Worst of all,
although it is still called Motor City, it has only one operating auto plant. Chennai makes more cars today.
In many
ways, Detroit is one of a kind, starting with its near-total dependence on an
industry, automobile manufacturing, that has been shrinking for decades. Racism
and racial tension plague many cities, but Detroit’s experience with both has
been particularly damaging, as shown by bloody upheavals in 1943 and 1967 — and
the massive flight of middle-class residents, mostly white, that began after
the latter event and never really ended.
An unusual
geography conspired against the city’s solvency; with a thinning population
spread out over 140 square miles, it
became increasingly unworkable to provide police, fire and other services. Many
cities have seen corruption, but the reign of former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick from 2002 to 2008 might have set some
kind of record. He faces 20 years or more on a federal bribery and extortion
conviction.
- Detroit has been beset in recent years by corruption, crime, and the collapse of the car industry, and has struggled to police its streets as people fled to the suburbs.
- The murder rate is the highest in nearly 40 years, only a one third of the city’s ambulances work, and police cars and fire trucks are also in poor and deteriorated condition.
- 40 per cent of the street lights do not work. About 60% of Detroit's children live in poverty.
