[Dr Nevergold]

Detroit is a city I like to say capitalism built in a few years, then destroyed in a few years. A great deal of Detroit's problems is that the city proper was so dependent upon one industry, and it diversified in the suburbs. When the auto industry declined and/or relocated to the suburbs or other states, the city declined as rapidly as it was built. Combine the racial strife of the American civil rights era and its no question why what happened did happen.

By comparison, every other Great Lakes city is very clean and functional, even Cleveland, compared with Detroit. But Detroit still has suburbs that are as wealthy and as clean and as functional as anywhere, including Houston and Atlanta.

Its just that the city proper has become so terribly awful... I think its a study that every urban policy or public policy program the world around should research, because there is no other city in the world with a story like Detroit wrapped in the hopeless raw capitalism that has left it without any federal assistance to rebuild unlike the other 'bailouts' we've seen.

Its too bad most of Detroit couldn't be assumed under eminent domain to be razed and rebuilt, with obvious exceptions for truly historic buildings.