The city that gave us our auto industry has contracted from 2 million residents to 900,000. Economically, it couldn’t be worse than Detroit.
A couple of recent stories out of Detroit should yank on any American’s heart strings. In this one, we have an interview with a man who has returned to subsistence hunting.
This one just gives us stark photographic evidence of the fact that Detroit is dead. I can’t imagine how I would feel if that were my home town.
The saddest part is that I bet Detroit hasn’t even hit rock bottom. I wonder if the city will exist at all in 50 years.
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The Legal Satyricon 
I wouldn’t worry too much. the 11th-most-populated city in the United States will still exist in 50 years. it may be greener, some neighborhoods (like this one) will be gone. but plenty of us will still be here.
what you see in photos like this are the lingering effects of the majority population of a city deciding they no longer want to live there.
Well, it still makes me sad to see it.
Conditions in Detroit are a little scary.
They had a picture of Central Station in Detroit in our property textbook. It resembled a ruin, though perhaps not so well maintained. Some years ago, the trains found Detroit too scary and so they stopped going there.
On the other hand, you cannot deny that Detroit asked for much of its own trouble. See Poletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit, 304 N.W.2d 455 (Mich. 1981). The city determined that a well-established working-class neighborhood should be flattened and the residents pushed out in order to accommodate a large corp wanting land at below-market prices. A city that treats its citizens thus indeed deserves to have its chickens come home to roost.
BTW: No, Hathcock does not make up for Poletown. Too little, too late, and Kelo shows which way the wind is really blowing.