An American City Where the Government Barely Exists
splinternews.com
splinternews.com
[1]http://www.miufi.org/ [2]http://thehinterlandsensemble.org/ [3]http://www.puppetart.org/ [4]http://tangentgallery.com/Tangent_Gallery/Home.html
It's not terribly uncommon for a city like Detroit to annex surrounding towns and cities, but some of them hold out, which looks like is what happened here.
Now things are different, but even if Highland Park's residents agreed to be annexed by Detroit, would Detroiters have them? Why annex a small city that's in terrible economic shape?
I think you could definitely make an argument that Detroit and Highland Park could come together and improve both their lots, but that would take a huge effort and a whole lot of political will that I'm not sure is there.
I think it is kind of a modern problem to think of government structure as a static thing. Like another example from Michigan, now that we have paved roads everywhere we should all but dissolve townships. Organizing most of what they do would work fine at the county level. There's some real neighbor stuff that they do, but they don't need to have zoning boards or road projects.
True. And I'd assume that it's very complex and Detroit in many cases cannot legally or financially assume responsibility, even if it wanted to. I have no idea how I'd solve the problems there, they are tough.
With a different government, tax base, and so on, Detroit as a whole may have similar problems, but the scale is different, and the larger scale likely means that there are some things Detroit can do that Highland Park cannot.
I'm not sure why you think that an article about one city, Highland Park, should have been about a different city, Detroit, that while it is close by, operates at a very different scale?
Well, I did ask the question and not state it as my opinion, didn't I? And I read the article, and already explained my take on the arguments you're making. Are you asking why, or just making a point?
The Detroit native in this thread agreed that Detroit natives think of Highland Park as part of Detroit.
Highland Park is entirely contained inside the Metro Detroit boundary. Use of the word "city" here is overloaded. To an outsider, Detroit is a city and Highland Park is a neighborhood within Detroit. To the Highland Park government, "city" has a technical boundary meaning that is not necessarily relevant to people outside Highland Park, and especially to people outside Michigan.
I'd speculate that most people who don't live in Michigan reading an article about a city in Michigan would assume or imagine something geographically distinct from other cities, with fields in between them, as opposed to a continuous metropolitan area.
My question is whether there might be some political context to the way this article is written. Do you know of any?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclave_and_exclave
They are sort of a topic of interest/amusement, because they aren't the usual thing.
Hamtramck is another city surrounded by Detroit, except for the portion that borders Highland Park.
It is not uncommon for there to be cities or towns in the metro area of other cities that are independent. For instance, Cambridge is different than Boston; or for an even closer example, Brookline which is surrounded on three sides by Boston is independent from Boston. Or Oakland is not San Francisco, nor is Almeda Oakland.
Or for other examples of being completely surrounded, the Vatican is not Rome. Monaco is not France.
The "technical boundary" is not irrelevant here. We're talking about different jurisdictions, with different governments, and an article about how one government is failing to provide some basic services is distinct from another government that is close by but has very different issues due to the differences of scale and available tax base.
> with fields in between them, as opposed to a continuous metropolitan area.
But that's not how cities work. It is very common for two cities to be part of one continuous metropolitan area, and the only way you notice the boundary is by paying very close attention to signs as you pass them.
> My question is whether there might be some political context to the way this article is written. Do you know of any?
I think that the context for this article is just that it's an interesting phenomenon; this small city, which grew very fast during the auto boom and has been fading slowly ever since, and now the government is so cash-strapped that it doesn't even have the personnel to work with independent non-profits to do things as basic as keeping the streetlights on, but also due to the small scale it's possible for individuals and neighborhood organizations to provide some of their own services that the city can't.
The issue of "the government barely exists", as expressed in the title, is not true of Detroit as a whole. While the Detroit government does have issues of being short on funds, it is large enough that there is a recognizable government that is able to do things. But for this small city, which grew very quickly and then has slowly been fading away, the size and scale make it very hard to have a functioning government that can reasonably govern.
And while the state and the federal government obviously do exist, for many of the things that ail Highland Park, the state and federal government generally work by providing grants to cities and towns, but being as cash strapped and small as this city is, it's hard for it to take advantage of programs that could bring in more revenue.
My guess is most Detroit artists never went to art school. The money just isn't here.
That's the problem. Not to paint a whole group with a single brush, but improvised bohemian sorts of facilities have a long track record of disdain for things like basic fire safety.
It is far easier to push some industrial-looking stuff into a club than try to setup a legit club inside a factory.
ADA compliance is all about opening up freedom to more people. It's the coolest thing in the world to see some quadroplegic dude in a wheelchair enjoying a concert as much as the people dancing. That's freedom for that dude. Bring it on.
Most buildings are not like that, and yes they either need to be built as accessible, or modified to become accessible, or stop being used.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I think the best, most constructive thing to do is upvote and expand on the comment you support. That adds to the conversation and reinforces the point the first comment made.
I wouldn't wish disability on anyone, but if you downvoted this sub-thread and you do end up disabled someday, may your curb cuts always be blocked, may the handicapped parking spaces always be parked in by your uncaring former self, and may your wheelchair break on a badly-maintained sidewalk, leaving you stranded, humiliated, and broke.
I really do believe that it's impossible to know the full motivations of who ever down voted the comment. It's easy to assume the worst, particularly when we perceive ourselves or our values as being attacked.
And to be fair, I almost never view net down votes the way you do ("more people on HN are willing to downvote [X] than upvote it.") Thank you for including that because it gives me another perspective. When I saw your comment, the text of your parent was black. I think it's likely that it was a single person who downvoted, particularly that it's so far down in a comment thread. It's definitely not the case that the comment or its context was presented to a majority of HN members and they were given the opportunity to vote. It's a small subset of members who read the comment. This subthread itself is charged: emotions are likely running higher than normal, and those who are willing to commit so far down a thread are likely to be that much more committed to whatever position they hold and may be that much more vote emotionally. I think this happens in a lot of cases. Internet forums are difficult places to have useful discussions on contentious topics.
I strongly believe that the only way we're going to be able to make progress on difficult topics (and there are a lot of them) is if we can figure out ways to honestly talk with each other from a place of giving each other the benefit of the doubt. Having empathy for people we don't agree with is even more important if we hope to make a difference. That charity, empathy, that benefit of the doubt, aren't infinite. If we come to a point where we don't think those we're in disagreement aren't dealing honestly with us, then communication has broken down. Anything we say further has to be even more strategic. How are people who you disagree with hear you talking about downvotes? Is it more likely going to change their minds? More likely to think of you as more unreasonable? I know how I tend to react.
Above I quoted the full "It never does any good, and it makes boring reading" mostly because I copied the full sentence. I think the first phrase is the most important, which is why I focused on that above. The second phrase I think is true as well, as the outcome of such comments is boringly predictable. The key for me is figuring out what is effective in producing the change I want to see.
And that's why I commented above. I hope you find this further exposition is useful for you as it as for me. Thanks again for sharing your interpretation of the downvotes. That's helpful for me.
HN has lurched to the right, and fascism is now acceptable here.
Pretty much nothing is 100% good or bad.
In many cases, accessibility rules (or fire safety rules for that matter) can prevent a business from being viable. Are we better off with a store that has a huge sign "does not meet fire code, enter at your own risk" in front of it, or with no store at all? I prefer the former.
There is positive discrimination, telling quadriplegics that they should be euthanized. And there is negative discrimination, failing to provide an ADA compliant restroom. The former is fascist, however the latter is not in my opinion. Of course it is best if all venues have restrooms that are wheelchair accessible, however the idea that any which does not provide accessible restrooms is fascist is a logical absurdity.
Lets take your argument to its end. There are 1 million wheel chair users in the US [2]. Lets just say that any venue that negatively discriminates against 1 million or more Americans is fascist. How many restaurants are there in the US that provide separate gluten free work surfaces in order to prepare gluten free food for the 3 million with celiac disease [3]? Another million people have a milk or egg allergy and need separate work surfaces for those ingredients as well [4]. I know, it's just 120 000 people in America that are actually blind [2], but not a single grocery store provides braille packaging on all their produce. All in all there are 2.4 million who are visually disabled, they should be given well lit venues, no darkness and light shows at concerts for them, they might trip and fall in the dark. But if things are going to be well lit, what about the 3 million Americans with chronic migraines (which causes photo-sensitivity) and therefore cannot bear the bright light [5]? Its literally impossible to not negatively discriminate against someone, and I've not even gotten into religious or ethical diets and norms. So is everyone who tries to open a venue a fascist?
[1] https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007... [2] http://codi.tamucc.edu/graph_based/.demographics/.statistics... [3] https://www.cureceliacdisease.org/wp-content/uploads/341_CDC... [4] https://www.foodallergy.org/sites/default/files/migrated-fil... [5] https://migraine.com/migraine-statistics/
Wheelchairs and the building standards that open places up to access.
Phones that can speak to you and parse your words and act on voice commands. A few weeks ago I saw a blind dude carry on a text message conversation on the bus, with someone he was going to meet, via his iphone. How cool is that??
Video game controllers that you can work with your neck movements and puffing breaths into an actuator tube.
HOW COOL IS ALL THIS STUFF??
And when it's gadgets and gear, people geek out over it all day long. How cool that that one GNOME developer submitted his last patch--when he was nearly totally paralyzed--a few days before he passed on, right?
Yet when it's building codes to open up physical spaces, suddenly the gubmint is burdening you? Fuck. that.
All this stuff is up to us to decide--what do we care about? Building a society that serves everyone, including the most vulnerable? Or propping up a status quo that leaves the most vulnerable locked out?
Sorry for the rant. Accessibility is important. Gets me riled up.
If the customer base exists, and the promoter can rely on word of mouth for advertising, why is it a red-flag to not want to pay anyone for advertising?
Also, why is it a red flag to accept cash, which 100% of attendees can produce instead of relying upon other payment methods which have been shown to make less money for the promoter?
Sure, some promoters and business owners will evade taxes, but people do that anyway for all sorts of businesses. In this case, accepting cash only is not an indicator of attempting to evade taxes.
In an all cash business, the truth is you make money hand over fist. You can't count it fast enough, even with your door person skimming - which you already expect to happen. Besides, you don't have your door people stand around all night with loads of cash in their pockets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire
36 people died.
I'm not sure why you would assume they violate code except to be dramatic. Concerts have been held in industrial places in secret, but if you hear about one it's typically above board.
And yet the original parent said:
the best part of Detroit is a trend of extremely creative people being able to do whatever they want with their respective spaces
Or did I misunderstand, and they are allowed to do anything zoning-wise but are still held to the appropriate codes.
It seems like they’d have to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into this city just to make it minimally functional, and they still won’t have a viable economy afterwards.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP19820
https://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/pdf.cfm?fips=19820&ar...
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP41940
http://www.bestplaces.net/metro/california/san_jose-sunnyval...
If you can pay 4 million people to leave, you can pay to fix whatever services they are lacking -- and then you'd have 4 million people in a area with hundreds of large companies and good government services!
A failure to understand this leads to all kinds of confused and nonsensical beliefs about rust belt cities and ultimately to casual, confident assertions that can only be described as absurd (like the one you’re responding to).
Dealing with broken cities will not be cheap, swift or easy. I have no ready solutions. But thinking that we can just walk away from them is only setting ourselves up for different problems down the timeline.
In Detroit the city bought a lot of lots, demolished the homes and closed that neighborhood. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7...
Police and fire in Detroit is hugely difficult because they have a large area to protect that includes numerous ghost neighborhoods. Often a fire is set in an abandoned house and if it's windy spreads to occupied residences.
Despite the difficulty Detroit's current mayor is committed to all the cities neighborhoods. However if you follow the money resources are concentrated in a handful of neighborhoods.
"Then earlier this year, he got a letter saying 333 Midland wasn’t up to code and it would have to cease operations immediately. He took care of the minor matters the fire marshall requested, like installing exit signs and extra fire extinguishers. But he still can’t get a clear answer from the building inspector about what else needs to be taken care of"
This is local government at its finest. I deal with this on a regular basis. There are regulations with no clear code; when I ask for a specific contract and list of things to do, I get the runaround - but that doesn't stop them from telling me what I am doing with my building structures is not up to code.
I sense it would be the ideal place to "start over" and build something new in terms of politics and economics.
But when you think about it, a city is such a complex thing, so unless there is money and investment, a poor american city will just stay poor, that seems to fit the law of gravity. Unless you redefine some new way to live in detroit that shortcuts the problems of money, this city will linger.
It's surprising because I really think all the large pool of cash from the silicon valley and its thousands of new alternative ideas could revive detroit. But instead San Francisco is just the antithesis of detroit. That says lengths about the polarized world of today's capitalism.
To be totally honest, I wonder why somebody like Bernie Sanders is not campaigning for mayor or governor other there. It's the ideal place for the left to accomplish things.
It's actually an example of the aftermath of decades of government by the left.
At one point in the 1980s they actually achieved the distinction of having the highest murder rate of any city in America.
Detroit is a well known example of it because they are still trying to uphold these parasitic relationships despite being basically evacuated.
We can't know the future. So when you need a 5-lane road now, or a major shopping center now, and the history says you'll almost certainly need a 7-lane road and big parking garage in a few years, the prudent thing to do is to build a little more capacity than you need, with the hopes that by the time you maintain it for 20 years and it needs to be replaced or improved again, it's served its purpose well.
Detroit was a seriously happening place half a century ago. There was nothing wrong with creating the buildings, infrastructure, and signing up for the maintenance contracts that those buildings needed at the time. But there was no plan in place for "What happens if all the money disappears and most of the city flees."
Many of the roads and buildings are in surprisingly good shape. Even if they can't do a good, frequent job of plowing the snow off that 7-lane-road in the winter, they're keeping up with it well enough. Pipes, drains, and wires designed to last 20 years are holding together pretty well after 40 years. But they're going to fail eventually, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.
Should there be a plan, maybe an insurance contract, for demolition if the city can no longer afford a thing? Could there be?
What do you mean by "enabled"? Are you suggesting the law should force a manufacturing plant to stay in a city, or a person to stay in their apartment? How would that possibly work?
http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2017/02/16/albany-redlining...
The area in red is where African Americans and poor Irish lived. No bank would write a mortgage there.
A quote from an article referenced in the link: “As federal official and leading real estate economist Homer Hoyt explained in 1939: "Usually existing residential structures deteriorate and become obsolete with the passage of time. They are occupied by successive groups of people of lower incomes and lower social standards with the result that the quality of the neighborhood declines with that of the buildings." In the eyes of Hoyt and nearly all other real estate professionals, the presence of non-white residents was prima facie evidence of neighborhood decay and the destruction of property values.”
These ideas were codified in Federal policy and residential lending standards. The legacy of those maps remains today in many places.
Or I guess the important matter would be making it so that you only have maybe a few quarters of loss before you can legally adjust services to fit within the budget.
City councils seem to think they're in the business of employing people permanently, but they really shouldn't need to be concerned about that, given that the citizens are left to foot the bill, and the majority of them do not work for the local government.
More importantly, the European cities didn't experience the same degree of racialized shunning, as described by the Detroit-native urban planner Pete Saunders: https://www.forbes.com/sites/petesaunders1/2017/07/28/detroi... Most Rust Belt metro areas have seen little population decline from their peak (metro Detroit has lost perhaps 200,000 people even as the city has lost over 1M), and could easily be intact-but-rough-edged cities with cheap housing if there weren't the same dynamic of white flight from the core.
But somehow I don't think it ever got quite as bad as Detroit. It seems that somehow American politics can just abandon cities, and declare their failure not a problem for the nation or the state.
(Last time I ran the numbers, 80s Detroit was more dangerous than troops-in-the-streets Troubles Belfast, but I don't have it to hand)
Picture's still the same.
The OP wrote, "the wealth gap in the US seems so much bigger than any other country," which is not supported by your link.
EDIT: And if you want more recent data: https://www.credit-suisse.com/corporate/en/research/research...
It's also one of the few countries with a multitude of multi-billionaires and yet an astoundingly high rate of child poverty.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...