General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: So Detroit- what went wrong? [View all]KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)...in short Detroit was a company town whose company left town. Large industries, most notably the auto industry, that once employed hundreds of thousands of employees have downscaled and outsourced...with few jobs replacing those blue collar jobs. Also, with the decline of the auto industry were the many companies that were associated with it. Entire neighborhoods became ghost towns with the city losing more and more revenue while urban decay began to set in. A once proud city lost a large percentage of its population and tax base while the city has had to take up a bigger and bigger load of social services. It was a downward spiral that began nearly 50 years ago and, sadly, there's no end in sight.
Detroit is not alone...urban decay is in every major American city and for similar reason...the loss of jobs and with it the decline in taxable revenues. The U.S. has changed from a manufacturing to information-based economy and left the cities behind...