While many are still optimistic that “The D” will make a comeback one of these days, hope is fading fast.
 
Back in the sixties two youngsters with shiny dimes clenched tightly in their little paws could walk a block and a half in this Detroit neighborhood and make it safely back to Grandma’s house with a couple small bags stuffed full of penny candy (well, maybe half empty bags… ) ~
 

 
Today the candy store is long gone. Grandma’s house and all her neighbors’ homes are a distant memory. And anyone letting two six or seven year-old kids walk three blocks in this area would be arrested for child abuse. That is if there were actually any cops around to make the arrest.

 
Detroit has lost nearly 1 million people in the last 50 years. Current population is hovering around 700,000 ~

In 2000, Detroit was still a major American city. Now it is a black hole. The median price of a house in the city that, in 1950, was the wealthiest community per capita in the United States is now about $10,000. The city that, in 1950, was the fourth largest in the country is now the second largest in Michigan, and every year it shrinks.

Source: Paul A. Rahe at Ricochet

Any wonder that the remaining population doesn’t have much faith in the city’s present leadership to improve things? A Detroit News poll last week reported that 62% of residents disapprove of the job City Council is doing and 68% aren’t happy with Mayor Dave Bing’s performance. Instead of the mayor and council cooperating on solutions, they’re frequently at loggerheads. Bing seems torn between doing the right thing and playing politics. And the Motor City Politburo opposes anything that threatens their power or perks.
 

The city’s problems are numerous and well-chronicled. Among them: Thousands of abandoned, burned-out houses line city blocks; skyrocketing crime and many residents afraid to leave their home. Buses are chronically late; drivers walked off the job for a day last summer.
 
And a near-financial collapse had Detroit on the brink of a state takeover and was averted only with the signing of a consent decree in April. That deal gives the state significant control over the city’s finances.
 
Eastside resident Alva Aldridge, 85, said she is fed up. Her street is plagued by broken street lights, standing water and “thugs” who hang around her house.
 
She said the city’s leadership is simply not serving the public well.
 
“They are not doing a good job,” said Aldridge. “We have lights out right now, and there’s water running down my street. They (city leaders) are not servicing the public. It’s very frustrating. That’s why I stay in my house most of the time. I don’t walk down the street anymore.”

In all fairness, it’s a herculean task to repair and reverse decades of decline. Corruption and cronyism have taken their toll in a city whose bureaucrats (most recently former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) have chronically been more concerned with filling their own coffers than addressing the needs of their constituents.
 
As a result, the news only gets more depressing:
 
• Detroit police chief steps down amid sex probe
• Audit shows Detroit Finance Department is missing more than $310,000
• ‘Enter Detroit at your own risk,’ police tell Tigers fans
• Roseville man killed in 4th Detroit cab driver attack in a month
• Forced to live alongside squatter in my Detroit house, woman says
 
The last once is a new low – even for Motown.
And those are just stories from October!

 
Well, at least we have the Tigers! They’re the one bright spot in the city right now – just clinched the American League pennant against the Yankees. Bless You Boys!!!
 
Now it’s on to the World Series…

Maybe the Tigs can give us a reason to Believe in Detroit again.

 
Related:
What fifty years of liberalism has brought: Detroit is crumbling faster than Obama presidency