Retailers Head for Exits in Detroit

[katty]

more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124510185111216455.html#printMode

JUNE 16, 2009 Retailers Head for Exits in Detroit
Shopping Becomes a Challenge as Auto-Industry Collapse Adds to City's Woes
Article Slideshow By ANDREW GROSSMAN

DETROIT -- They call this the Motor City, but you have to leave town to buy a Chrysler or a Jeep.

Borders Inc. was founded 40 miles away, but the only one of the chain's bookstores here closed this month. And Starbucks Corp., famous for saturating U.S. cities with its storefronts, has only four left in this city of 900,000 after closures last summer.

Fabrizio Costantini for the Wall Street Journal

Lochmoor Chrysler Jeep on Detroit's East Side has stopped selling Chrysler products, one of the 789 franchises Chrysler is dropping from its retail network.
There was a time early in the decade when downtown Detroit was sprouting new cafes and shops, and residents began to nurture hopes of a rebound. But lately, they are finding it increasingly tough to buy groceries or get a cup of fresh-roast coffee as the 11th largest U.S. city struggles with the recession and the auto-industry crisis.

No national grocery chain operates a store here. A lack of outlets that sell fresh produce and meat has led the United Food and Commercial Workers union and a community group to think about building a grocery store of its own.

[sarcasmo]

1. A sad state of affairs here in Michigan not only in Detroit.

[Demeter]

2. Detroit's Been Like That Since 1967

I was visiting my grandmother, and she needed plumbing repairs. So I went looking for a faucet--and every plumbing supply place was boarded up, all the way to Southfield. Actually, everything else was boarded up and abandoned, too.

So sad that people are only now noticing, or pretending to care.

[L0oniX]

4. Detroit has not been the saem since the 60's riots that brought out the guard with machine gun posts

[MelissaB]

3. 22.8% unemployment rate and 30% of residents are on food stamps

snip

The city's 22.8% unemployment rate is among the highest in the U.S.; 30% of residents are on food stamps.

:cry: