LinkBlog: detroit

Today, Detroit looks like a war zone. The slowly rotting corpse of what had been America’s backbone, the leading city in the industrial “Rust Belt.” Today, those cities are on the decline and scheduled to be bulldozed, shrunk and returned to nature. Detroit, Flint, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Memphis. These centers of production and high-wage working class jobs are now collapsing in every sense. Their city governments are broke. Foreclosures range around 1 in 5 in the worst areas. Neighbors are in decline. The last jobs are about to go.

As the area's economy worsens --unemployment was over 16% in July -- food stamp applications and pantry visits have surged. Detroiters have responded to this crisis. Huge amounts of vacant land has led to a resurgence in urban farming. Volunteers at local food pantries have also increased. But the food crunch is intensifying, and spreading to people not used to dealing with hunger. As middle class workers lose their jobs, the same folks that used to donate to soup kitchens and pantries have become their fastest growing set of recipients.

The people of the Detroit Metropolitan region got a glimpse of the ruined block a few months ago when the police convened a press conference from the blood-stained porch of 654 Robinwood claiming they had rounded up 61 outlaws including the killer who assassinated the dope man at that address in broad daylight. And then like quicksilver, the police and the press slipped away. The six families remain. Trapped. "Do I live in Hell? Yes I do and no I don't," said Jerry Williams, who lives at 666 Robinwood and spoke through a steel gate dressed in a bathrobe and dirty socks. "It would be Hell if I was dead, but I ain't. So that just makes the place ugly. The most ugly thing that human beings can create."

Home values have plummeted to levels not seen in 1/2 a century… and the 21% unemployment has in some cases been projected to double within 12 months if the auto industry totally collapses. To make matters even worse, Detroit has superseded New Orleans as the “worst city” in America…. but New Orleans had a Hurricane they could assign blame to… Detroit has no such natural disaster crutch.

"I miss my school, and that was a good house. Plus I miss my dog, Precious. We had to give her away to somebody," said Cherish, a pretty girl with her hair pulled into a puff on top of her head. "The hardest part was I lost all my best friends." The 8-year-old is one of a growing number of homeless children attending schools throughout Metro Detroit, where the number of children known to have no fixed address has shot up by more than 70 percent in the last three years. Cherish has lived in two shelters since her family was evicted from their Detroit home in November.

A 7-year-old-girl is being hailed as an "angel from heaven" and a hero for jumping in front of an enraged gunman, who pumped six bullets into the child as she used her body as a shield to save her mother's life. Alexis Goggins, a first-grader at Campbell Elementary School, is in stable condition at Children's Hospital in Detroit recovering from gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm. The girl's mother, Selietha Parker, 30, was shot in the left side of her head and her bicep by a former boyfriend, who police said was trying to kill Parker. . . . Police identified him as Calvin Tillie, 29, a four-time convicted felon whom Parker had dated for six months.

With bidding stalled on some of the least desirable residences in Detroit's collapsing housing market, even the fast-talking auctioneer was feeling the stress. "Folks, the ground underneath the house goes with it. You do know that, right?" he offered. After selling house after house in the Motor City for less than the $29,000 it costs to buy the average new car, the auctioneer tried a new line: "The lumber in the house is worth more than that!"