OT:Please Save Detroit

I am in the middle of watching the Detroit episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown. What has happened to that city is a national tragedy. We owe where we are economically, technologically, and industrially as a nation to that city. So many great buildings standing empty. Giant factories turned into ghost towns. Sky scrapers selling for $5 million. Can't we do something to save that great city?

Can't Google just buy it fix it up and flip it? Turn it into a technology mecca?

I think they could buy the whole city for what they will make in today's ad revenue.

Sorry had to vent. This episode is breaking my heart.

I wish the solution were that simple. Even if Google did purchase the city, it would cost additional millions to renovate all those broken and abandon buildings. Even then, that would not solve the poverty issues that city is facing. Only blocks away from Comerica Park and Ford Field (where the Tigers and Lions play, respectively) is a park full of homeless people. Makeshift tents and tarps for acres. It gut wrenching to see. 

I'm not from Detroit, I'm from Lansing. I speak from experience that when Oldsmobile left, it took the lifeblood of that city. It's the same thing that happened in Detroit...just on a much, much larger scale. 

I left Michigan almost 10 years because of the lack of opportunity there. No jobs. It saddens me. I love the Mitten with all my heart and it will always be home. But something has to change up there...starting in Detroit.

 

It would stop the downward spiral. It would create fringe opportunities with restaurants and shops. Yes it would take a huge investment but what is the alternative? to just let it crumble?

I'm not disagreeing with you and I am certainly not in favor of letting it crumble. I have to hope there is still opportunities. It starts with people caring. I know a lot of people in Detroit who are there because they care about the city and feel emotionally connected to it. Those are the people who will save Detroit. Maybe not over night....but they love it enough to do something about it.

That would be wonderful. Yet I don't see that being the answer. I live in Michigan and it seems as if Detroit is not the only place in shambles our whole state is crumbling and could use a turn around. However turning one area into a technology mecca would at least be a start to helping us all dig out of this hole we have fallen into.

Keith, I saw that episode and it broke my heart too. However, the would have to be some incentive for a business to come in and there isn't one. Everything will always come down to politics and mind set. Business is in business to make money. You want to save an area, take away regulations that strangle it. Make it a tax free zone, give business a reason to return and it will become a success, take away incentive and you get ruin. Not politically correct, but historically accurate.

Same problems in Youngstown, Ohio... Really sad situation after steel left.