Detroit then and now: An infographic.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

joicks! the state is definately going to temporarily take over reigns of detroit city:


http://mobile.reuters.com/article/id...30301?irpc=932

^ I love this quote from the article:

Karen Lewis, 49, a manager at a fast food store, reflected the resentment some residents feel at the takeover of the predominantly black and Democratic city by a predominantly white and Republican state government.

"It don't take a genius to know what this is all about," said Lewis, who is black. "They want our money and our land. No one cares about us. And we're the ones who stuck around. Not the white folks."

Really Karen Lewis? All of those mean, rich white people covet Detroit's land and thus crafted this scheme to get control of it? Great conspiracy!

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

Great piece about the Detroit News during the 1970s. Most of it is about the process of making a newspaper but a good bit is about Detroit itself and the people of the time.

• Video Link

The more I learn about how Detroit was then, the more I feel like it was a typical big city back then and went through similar events like any other large city of its age. But then that confuses me on how it ended up in such odd circumstances of today unless Detroit really is the exaggerated effect of the norm that happened elsewhere.

Your right, Detroit was much more like Chicago in the early 1970's, I mean in the first two minutes of that you see the same stuff you would see in Chicago; manufacturing jobs, white ethnic groups (Polish dancers, etc.), urban neighborhoods and housing with diverse racial groups (as someone said) and other old school urban stuff. Today Detroit is way off in it's own direction for the worse and Chicago is kind of a hybrid between Detroit and New York City. Why is this? Well one theory political historians have floated around is that machine politics (Richard J. Daley style) was good for Chicago (and by inference would have been for other rust belt cities) in the 1950-1970's. Obviously machine politics is bad for the Chicago of today but at that time it managed the decline brought about by white flight and de-industrialization and kept many neighborhoods in at least stable condition with the critical mass for a viable middle class population. A counter theory of course could be that it was just inevitable Chicago would weather the storm better because it always had a more diverse economy (Chicago has long had stock exchanges and was the financial hub of the Midwest) whereas Detroit was always too dependent on the auto industry and certain types of manufacturing and it never had a financial industry on the scale of Chicago. So yeah Chicago was more manufacturing dependent than New York City in 1950 but less so than Detroit and that could be an explanation of the hybridization. The fact that New York City almost went bankrupt in the 1970's when Chicago's finances were in relatively good shape gives some evidence to the political machine theory, I don't know much about the municipal finances of Detroit in the 1970's. It could also be a combination of machine politics and a more diverse economy that made Chicago weather better than Detroit.

[animatedmartian]

I'd agree with that. It's probably a mixture of both. Detroit was pretty centered on manufacturing even if there was a separate industry; i.e. the many retailers that started and thrived in Detroit before expanding nationally (a few of them did) due to the wealth of the manufacturing workers. Detroit also used to have a lot of large local banks and I think had a stock exchange probably sometime before the 60s (I'm not really sure when actually, but I know it did at one point).

During the 1970s, African Americans came to political power in Detroit but there was never really an effort to draw in business from out-of-state with the resources Detroit had. Instead, much more effort was put into the "city versus suburbs" conflict which did more harm than good regionally. Detroit tried to essentially suck business out from the suburbs which really never was going to work, and really for people to believe that Detroit was a great as a big city it was, it ought to been able to draw in big businesses if that were true. Of course in hindsight, everyone probably didn't figure that manufacturing would shrink like it did thus why Detroit never made it and urgent need to diversify (until now unfortunately).

[AccraGhana]

I do not agree that Detroit of the 70’s had what businesses from outside the state wanted. Businesses are generally attracted to cheap labor, low taxes and low regulations. Michigan, including Detroit, did not offer such an environment. Unions made it hard to attract business to this state and most certainly to the city of Detroit. Detroit was basically attractive to manufacturers who wanted to take advantage of the manufacturing infrastructure and skilled manufacturing labor force. It was not attractive to the office and information type companies and headquarters of the then evolving “New Economy”. The Detroit area was a “brawn” based economy while the nation was evolving into a “brain” based economy.

There really was not a city versus suburb issue. The issue was racial and suburb vs. city was a symptom thereof. I also hate to use the term versus because it implies a sort of “equality” of competition. It was a hyper extension of America’s race problem that was uniquely evolving to manifest between city suburbs. If you take the ten largest cities in 1950 and there white population totals then and compare them with the total white population of those cities today, you will understand why Detroit is so different. What major city, other than Detroit, currently only has a mere 5% of its white population peak? If Detroit simply maintained the average percentages maintained of those other cities, Detroit would be a city of over a million and likely would not be in the financial crisis that it is in today, at least not to the same degree.

And for the record Blacks were not attempting to drive whites out of the city of Detroit or to create a majority black city. Blacks were simply seeking the path of least resistance to opportunity and the American dream, which h led them from cotton fields in the rural south into communities up north for opportunities. As more blacks migrated to the city of Detroit from the south, there sheer numbers forced the expansion outside the traditional “black bottom” into other parts of the city which triggered white flight. When the whole thing played out Detroit was left about 85% black with less than half the population of its peak.

[mhays]

Some businesses are attracted to cheap wages and low regs. But others are the opposite. The creativity/leadership portion of the knowledge economy is centered on talent more than anything. And talent is drawn by opportunity, lifestyle, and so on.

[AccraGhana]

Originally Posted by mhays

Some businesses are attracted to cheap wages and low regs. But others are the opposite. The creativity/leadership portion of the knowledge economy is centered on talent more than anything. And talent is drawn by opportunity, lifestyle, and so on.

That is true....but again the context of the conversation was the 1970's. Also, keep in mind that China's boom is NOT the result of the creativity and knowledge class. China is booming because it had become the cheap labor, low regulation magnet that attracted a lot of direct foreign investment from the West once it open up its economy to capitalism. Much of China's boom was the result of Direct Foreign investment from the West as capital sought the path of least resistance to profits.

[miketoronto]

Detroit's economy did not tank due to business closing and moving to China, etc.
Detroit's economy tanked because almost all the business moved a mere few miles away to the suburbs.
People tend to forget that outside of the inner city Metro Detroit is not doing all that badly, and actually has a pretty well diversified and rich business community.

The following is from Wikipedia and the stats are a little old. But it does show that really Detroit's problem is that all the business is in the suburbs, and the business never really left the region. They just left the city.


"Among metro areas with more than one million people, Metro Detroit was fourth in the U.S. from 2007 to 2009 for new corporate facilities and expansions."

"A 2011 economic study showed Metro Detroit with the highest share of employment (13.7%) in the technology sectors in the U.S."

"Metro Detroit is among the top five financial centers in the U.S. having all of the big four accounting firms.[47] The area's major financial service employers include Quicken Loans, Ally Financial, Ford Motor Credit Company, Bank of America, Comerica, PNC Financial Services, Fifth Third Bank, JP Morgan Chase, GE Capital, TD Auto Finance, Deloitte Touche, KPMG, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bakery Tilly, Plante Moran, Robert Half International, and Raymond James."

"Metro Detroit's technology sector is fifth in the U.S. for total employment and fourth in the percent of employment concentrated within the sector.[10] In 2010, the Detroit area became the fastest growing region in the U.S. for high technology jobs."

[north 42]

^

A lot of Windsorites are employed in the IT sector in the greater Detroit area, commuting daily. A lot of people don't think of the Windsor area as having potential employment opportunities in the IT sector, but it has a growing number of local tech firms that keep expanding, and as was stated above, access to the Detroit market.

[AccraGhana]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Detroit's economy did not tank due to business closing and moving to China, etc. Detroit's economy tanked because almost all the business moved a mere few miles away to the suburbs.
People tend to forget that outside of the inner city, Metro Detroit is not doing all that badly and actually has a pretty well diversified and rich business community.

The following is from Wikipedia and the stats are a little old. But it does show that really Detroit's problem is that all the business is in the suburbs, and the business never really left the region. They just left the city.


"Among metro areas with more than one million people, Metro Detroit was fourth in the U.S. from 2007 to 2009 for new corporate facilities and expansions."

"A 2011 economic study showed Metro Detroit with the highest share of employment (13.7%) in the technology sectors in the U.S."

"Metro Detroit is among the top five financial centers in the U.S. having all of the big four accounting firms.[47] The area's major financial service employers include Quicken Loans, Ally Financial, Ford Motor Credit Company, Bank of America, Comerica, PNC Financial Services, Fifth Third Bank, JP Morgan Chase, GE Capital, TD Auto Finance, Deloitte Touche, KPMG, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bakery Tilly, Plante Moran, Robert Half International, and Raymond James."

"Metro Detroit's technology sector is fifth in the U.S. for total employment and fourth in the percent of employment concentrated within the sector.[10] In 2010, the Detroit area became the fastest growing region in the U.S. for high technology jobs."

This is true....and I hope that you did not think I was implying that businesses left Detrot for China.....because I was not. My point was related to the point that the poster made about businesses being attractive to knowledge and creative class of workers. If that werre mostly true then China would not have boomed like it has. China's boom was due to it's cheap labor, low regulations and the desire of manufacturers to get a foothold into China's massive consumer market.

Detroit declined for the reason you correctly stated...which was companies and people moving across 8 mile. In my opinion Detroit essentially faced economic sanctions post riots and post the election of its first black mayor. There is also a trade deficit as Detroters spend far more in the suburbs than suburbanintes spend in Detroit....which helps to make the suburbs more successful and helps to keep the city in decline. Of course, its hard to spend in the city when there are few places to spend it at....due to major chains and businesses choosing the suburbs over the city.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

Your right, Detroit was much more like Chicago in the early 1970's, I mean in the first two minutes of that you see the same stuff you would see in Chicago; manufacturing jobs, white ethnic groups (Polish dancers, etc.), urban neighborhoods and housing with diverse racial groups (as someone said) and other old school urban stuff. Today Detroit is way off in it's own direction for the worse and Chicago is kind of a hybrid between Detroit and New York City. Why is this? Well one theory political historians have floated around is that machine politics (Richard J. Daley style) was good for Chicago (and by inference would have been for other rust belt cities) in the 1950-1970's. Obviously machine politics is bad for the Chicago of today but at that time it managed the decline brought about by white flight and de-industrialization and kept many neighborhoods in at least stable condition with the critical mass for a viable middle class population. A counter theory of course could be that it was just inevitable Chicago would weather the storm better because it always had a more diverse economy (Chicago has long had stock exchanges and was the financial hub of the Midwest) whereas Detroit was always too dependent on the auto industry and certain types of manufacturing and it never had a financial industry on the scale of Chicago. So yeah Chicago was more manufacturing dependent than New York City in 1950 but less so than Detroit and that could be an explanation of the hybridization. The fact that New York City almost went bankrupt in the 1970's when Chicago's finances were in relatively good shape gives some evidence to the political machine theory, I don't know much about the municipal finances of Detroit in the 1970's. It could also be a combination of machine politics and a more diverse economy that made Chicago weather better than Detroit.

the comparisons and contrasts of detroit and chicago since 1950 is a subject that could probably fill a book. in addition to the above observations, here are a couple of other things that contributed to the different trajectories of the cities.



County Boundaries: chicago was actually quite blessed to be located in a county as massive as cook county. not just for it's physical size of nearly 1,000 sq, miles, but also because cook county encompasses all of chicago's inner-ring suburbia. detroit has the unlucky circumstance of 8 mile road, that isn't just the limit between suburb and city, but also the demarcation between counties. oakland and macomb counties hold a good deal of detroit's inner ring suburbia, but they're in an entirely different county from the central city. and once 8 mile became a race barrier as well, the battle lines became so terribly and clearly drawn as oakland county developed a very adversarial relationship with detroit and wayne county. in chicago's case, the suburbs and the city butted heads to be sure, but because cook county holds all of chicago's inner ring suburbia, the burbs and city were under the jurisdiction of the same county board, and thus were forced to work out solutions that were amenable to all. with both whites and blacks living in large number not just in the county, but also in the city itself, the racial issues of white flight played-out differently in chicago than they did in detroit with regards to city and county boundaries.

the size of cook county has also helped chicago stay in control of the metro region. the other suburban counties in chicagoland are quite small and weak compared to the cook county juggernaut. in metro detroit, oakland county is big enough to see itself on an equal power footing to wayne county, especially considering the wealth imblalance. just look at the number for cook county on the list below. it is a beast. nothing in chicagoland comes anywhere close.



2011 county population estimates:

CHICAGOLAND
cook: 5,217,080
dupage: 923,222
lake: 706,222
will: 681,545
kane: 520,271
lake (IN): 495,558
mchenry: 308,944
kenosha (WI): 167,293
porter (IN): 165,537
kendall: 116,631
kankakee: 113,698
la porte (IN): 111,374
dekalb: 104,743
grundy: 50,130
jasper (IN):33,416
newton (IN): 14,161
___________________________

METRO DETROIT
wayne: 1,802,096
oakland: 1,210,145
macomb: 842,145
genesee: 422,080
washtenaw: 347,962
livingston: 181,722
st. clair: 161,642
monroe: 151,560
lapeer: 88,082










Trains: detroit had extensive street cars and some commuter rail, but it never had anything quite like the 1-2 punch of the el and metra commuter rail systems that chicago had that kept downtown chicago as the unchallengeable employment center of the entire region. even today, more than half of chicagoland's office space is located in downtown chicago. the trains had a big role to play in keeping everything so centralized, and in turn that centralization helped prop up the city during the dark ages of the 70s/80s.







Mexicans: this one is easy. without the hundreds of thousands of mexican immigrants who flocked to chicago during the last 1/4 of the 20th century, a A LOT more of chicago's hoods would have the bombed-out ghetto look. that one single demographic bonanza saved vast swaths of chicago from complete urban abandonment.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the comparisons and contrasts of detroit and chicago since 1950 is a subject that could probably fill a book. in addition to the above observations, here are a couple of other things that contributed to the different trajectories of the cities.



County Boundaries: chicago was actually quite blessed to be located in a county as massive as cook county. not just for it's physical size of nearly 1,000 sq, miles, but also because cook county encompasses all of chicago's inner-ring suburbia. detroit has the unlucky circumstance of 8 mile road, that isn't just the limit between suburb and city, but also the demarcation between counties. oakland and macomb counties hold a good deal of detroit's inner ring suburbia, but they're in an entirely different county from the central city. and once 8 mile became a race barrier as well, the battle lines became so terribly and clearly drawn as oakland county developed a very adversarial relationship with detroit and wayne county. in chicago's case, the suburbs and the city butted heads to be sure, but because cook county holds all of chicago's inner ring suburbia, the burbs and city were under the jurisdiction of the same county board, and thus were forced to work out solutions that were amenable to all. with both whites and blacks living in large number not just in the county, but also in the city itself, the racial issues of white flight played-out differently in chicago than they did in detroit with regards to city and county boundaries.

the size of cook county has also helped chicago stay in control of the metro region. the other suburban counties in chicagoland are quite small and weak compared to the cook county juggernaut. in metro detroit, oakland county is big enough to see itself on an equal power footing to wayne county, especially considering the wealth imblalance. just look at the number for cook county on the list below. it is a beast. nothing in chicagoland comes anywhere close.



2011 county population estimates:

CHICAGOLAND
cook: 5,217,080
dupage: 923,222
lake: 706,222
will: 681,545
kane: 520,271
lake (IN): 495,558
mchenry: 308,944
kenosha (WI): 167,293
porter (IN): 165,537
kendall: 116,631
kankakee: 113,698
la porte (IN): 111,374
dekalb: 104,743
grundy: 50,130
jasper (IN):33,416
newton (IN): 14,161
___________________________

METRO DETROIT
wayne: 1,802,096
oakland: 1,210,145
macomb: 842,145
genesee: 422,080
washtenaw: 347,962
livingston: 181,722
st. clair: 161,642
monroe: 151,560
lapeer: 88,082










Trains: detroit had extensive street cars and some commuter rail, but it never had anything quite like the 1-2 punch of the el and metra commuter rail systems that chicago had that kept downtown chicago as the unchallengeable employment center of the entire region. even today, more than half of chicagoland's office space is located in downtown chicago. the trains had a big role to play in keeping everything so centralized, and in turn that centralization helped prop up the city during the dark ages of the 70s/80s.







Mexicans: this one is easy. without the hundreds of thousands of mexican immigrants who flocked to chicago during the last 1/4 of the 20th century, a A LOT more of chicago's hoods would have the bombed-out ghetto look. that one single demographic bonanza saved vast swaths of chicago from complete urban abandonment.

Yup, to all of that.

Detroit also might actually have been better off if it had split off into its own county before. It would have county level powers that it does not currently enjoy. Its tax money would not have been directly subsidizing the build out of Wayne County. And even at today's population it would still be the fourth largest county in Michigan. However, as a city-county, it probably would have better been able to lobby for urban friendly policies to benefit itself.

According to Wikipedia, the power for a large municipality to create its own county was removed from the state constitution in 1962. If Detroit had split before then it would have been by far the largest county in Michigan. With all things being the same, it still would have remained Michigan's largest county until 2000.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Detroit also might actually have been better off if it had split off into its own county before. It would have county level powers that it does not currently enjoy. Its tax money would not have been directly subsidizing the build out of Wayne County. And even at today's population it would still be the fourth largest county in Michigan. However, as a city-county, it probably would have better been able to lobby for urban friendly policies to benefit itself.

i disagree. a detroit city/wayne county split would have likely made things even worse for detroit. st. louis did the city/county split thing ages ago and it has caused nothing but problems for the city of st. louis in the modern era. separating a struggling central city from the wealth of its suburban tax base is generally not a good idea in my opinion. that was one of my points about chicago being lucky that such a large swath of its suburban population lives within cook county.

going in the opposite direction of a city/county split, metro detroit would be better served by a wayne, oakland, macomb county merger. you'd have roughly 3,850,000 people in about 1,967 sq. miles. and the VAST bulk of metro detroit's wealth all within one super-sized metro-size county.

not that that would ever happen in a million years.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

If Detroit had split before then it would have been by far the largest county in Michigan. With all things being the same, it still would have remained Michigan's largest county until 2000.

not quite, a city of detroit county would have been passed in population by oakland county by the 1990 census.

oakland county 1990: 1,083,592
city of detroit 1990: 1,027,974

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i disagree. a detroit city/wayne county split would have likely made things even worse for detroit. st. louis did the city/county split thing ages ago and it has caused nothing but problems for the city of st. louis in the modern era. separating a struggling central city from the wealth of its suburban tax base is generally not a good idea in my opinion. that was one of my points about chicago being lucky that such a large swath of its suburban population lives within cook county.

going in the opposite direction of a city/county split, metro detroit would be better served by a wayne, oakland, macomb county merger. you'd have roughly 3,850,000 people in about 1,967 sq. miles. and the VAST bulk of metro detroit's wealth all within one super-sized metro-size county.

not that that would ever happen in a million years.

Well, several things would be different if Detroit were its own county. First, in Michigan road construction and maintenance is a function of the county and the municipalities within the county are taxed to fund that. Detroit's population was taxed to build a road system out into rural Wayne County that eventually was sucking tax paying residents and businesses out of the city. Second, Wayne County also controls the land authority that "manages" and auctions Detroit's abandoned properties. If that power was directly in the hands of the city then the abandonment problem might have been treated with a little more urgency over the decades. Third, Wayne County levies taxes on property within the city of Detroit in addition to taxes levied by the city. So, in theory, Detroit's tax rate would be slightly more competitive with surrounding communities.

By the time Detroit peaked, it was too late for it to swallow Wayne County since all of the border communities had incorporated to prevent annexation. The next best thing would've been for Detroit to split from Wayne County and then force those border municipalities in Wayne County to decide whether they wanted to un-incorporate and then be annexed into Detroit, or just make a go of it without Detroit's tax revenue.

[Steely Dan]

^ again, i just disagree with that line of reasoning based on chicago's experience of having the good fortune of being located in an extremely large county that encompasses all of its inner ring suburbia.

in my opinion, detroit city as a stand alone county would be even more troubled than it currently is as a part of wayne county. there's strength in numbers.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ again, i just disagree with that line of reasoning based on chicago's experience of having the good fortune of being located in an extremely large county that encompasses all of its inner ring suburbia.

in my opinion, detroit city as a stand alone county would be even more troubled than it currently is as a part of wayne county. there's strength in numbers.

Realizing there might be subtleties of Michigan state law you or I are not familiar with I agree with you. Certainly within the context of Illinois the city of Chicago certainly benefited from Cook County, the latter has the majority of the population of even the most broadly defined greater Chicagoland area. In general the Cook suburbs have a better relationship with the city, as someone who spent much of his life in the outer parts of the city I have had much exposure to suburban Cook County I can certainly attest to that.

What I would like to know is how is the relationship between the suburbs in Wayne County and the City of Detroit? The interesting thing is that the Chicago still has slightly more than 50% of Cook County's population and thus the city and suburbs are kind of on equal footing. Even considering the splintered nature of the major counties in Metro Detroit within Wayne County itself Detroit is now the clear minority partner with 700K residents vs. 1.1 million in suburban Wayne. Chicago is the majority city within the majority county of Chicagoland. Detroit is only the plurality city within the plurality county of Metro Detroit.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

What I would like to know is how is the relationship between the suburbs in Wayne County and the City of Detroit?

Politically, it's probably better than some imagine, at least relative to Detroit's relationship with it's other two neighbors. In practice, the county exec comes from the out-county, with the other county-wide elected offices and appointees generally coming from the city.

County government in Michigan is weaker than in most neighboring states, since township government covers a lot of what counties do in other places, and with it being so homogenous partisan-wise (1 Republican county commissioner on a 15-member board), there isn't much friction. The county generally supports property tax increases for county amenities that exist in the city (museums, jails, etc...), and the city reciprocates (suburban bus system).

[hudkina]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

not quite, a city of detroit county would have been passed in population by oakland county by the 1990 census.

oakland county 1990: 1,083,592
city of detroit 1990: 1,027,974

Don't forget Wayne County itself. It would have been the largest with a population in 1990 of 1,083,713. It's kind of funny just how similar suburban Wayne County and Oakland County were in population in 1990. Off by just 121.

Suburban Wayne County was surpassed by Oakland County in total population in the early 90's. Today suburban Wayne County has a population of 1,106,807 compared to Oakland County with 1,202,362. Both areas are getting to the point where they are running out of easily developable land, particularly Wayne County.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by hudkina

Don't forget Wayne County itself. It would have been the largest with a population in 1990 of 1,083,713. It's kind of funny just how similar suburban Wayne County and Oakland County were in population in 1990. Off by just 121.

good catch.

Originally Posted by hudkina

Today suburban Wayne County has a population of 1,106,807 compared to Oakland County with 1,202,362. Both areas are getting to the point where they are running out of easily developable land, particularly Wayne County.

is oakland county really getting close to running out of developable land? that would seem odd to me because i think of dupage county as chicagoland's version of oakland county (or the closest thing to it at least), but dupage county has double the overall density of oakland county (2,800 ppsm vs. 1,400 ppsm) and it is truly getting close to full build-out. it would seem to me that the northern half of oakland county would still have a good deal of land left to develop to increase overall density.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by LMich

Politically, it's probably better than some imagine, at least relative to Detroit's relationship with it's other two neighbors. In practice, the county exec comes from the out-county, with the other county-wide elected offices and appointees generally coming from the city.

County government in Michigan is weaker than in most neighboring states, since township government covers a lot of what counties do in other places, and with it being so homogenous partisan-wise (1 Republican county commissioner on a 15-member board), there isn't much friction. The county generally supports property tax increases for county amenities that exist in the city (museums, jails, etc...), and the city reciprocates (suburban bus system).

interesting. so it sounds like the detroit/wayne county relationship isn't as acrimonious as iheartthed was making it sound with his talk of city/county splitting.

that line of argument really was perplexing to me because in the chicago example that i know, chicago runs cook county, to the degree that chicago's city hall and cook county's headquarters are the same friggin building! and chicago is so much better off for having virtually all of its inner-ring suburbia located in a county that it controls.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

interesting. so it sounds like the detroit/wayne county relationship isn't as acrimonious as iheartthed was making it sound with his talk of city/county splitting.

that line of argument really was perplexing to me because in the chicago example that i know, chicago runs cook county, to the degree that chicago's city hall and cook county's headquarters are the same friggin building! and chicago is so much better off for having virtually all of its inner-ring suburbia located in a county that it controls.

I didn't meant to imply that Wayne/Detroit's relationship was as vitriolic as Detroit and its northern neighbors. My point is that Detroit would have had a different set of tools to work with if it had become a city/county that it doesn't have as just a city... And there's no good reason that I can think of for it to not be its own county.