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| *Travel Tips>>>Detroit Travel Tips |
Is Detroit a bad city? if yes, why? if not why? |
Travel Info Is Detroit a bad city? if yes, why? if not why? Travel Tips Detroit has great potential for being an All American and World Class City, but when they are giving a window of opportunity to develop into a cosmopolitian city, they throw their window of opportunity out the window. I do not see Detroit changing for the future and to me Detroit will always be Detroit, it will never change and just remain the same. Others If you dont know...yes, you should probably avoid the neighborhoods...downtown, is perfectly safe to visit for anyone, algthough My Jeep LiBerty got ripped off in front of Vicente's cuban cuisine a year ago. Any city is as safe as it is. . Some have good moments and some have bad moments. Detroit is a wonderful city. Like any other. None are perfect. No city in the states is like walking into a war zone. So dont worry. Depends on what you are specifically talking about. I grew up in Detroit and personally I don't think it's that bad. There is poverty in every major city and where there's poverty there is crime, simple. DETROIT IS A "BIG"CITY OF COURSE IT DEPENDS ON WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU CONSIDER GOOD OR BAD IN THE CITY??I MEAN HEY DETROIT HAS A BAD "A" NEW TIGER STADIUM - FORD FIELD FOR THE LIONS IS STATE OF THE ART THE FOX THEATER IS STILL BEAUTIFUL-ALL AND ALL TO ME DETROIT'S DOWNTOWN CAN BE CALLED "UPTOWN" NOT TO MENTION GREEK TOWN AND ALL IT'S LIGHTS SO BRIGHT-NOW ON THE OTHER HAND DOES DETROIT HAVE BAD AREAS???WELL WHAT CITY DOESN'T???DETROIT IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT GOOD OR BAD!!!! Detroit has plenty of untapped potential. It has had many opportunities to turn around. It just hasn't. During the Super Bowl last year, Detroit was bustling with activity. The city came across as the city of the future. The city WITH a future. Once the camera's left and the media eye turned elsewhere, it went back to empty buildings and trash collecting on street corners. I know many of the residents in the city want change. They have this beautiful waterfront that not many major cities can boast, they have historical buildings that should be preserved, there are neighborhoods that could be revitilized. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen. The city is indebt and with the exception of Greektown, you do not want to wander the streets. Even Greektown is pretty shady now. Sure, most cities of this size have their problems with crime. But those cities also have a downtown that is filled with shopping and sites and opportunity. The surrounding neighborhoods are tended to and "happening" as well. Leadership isn't strong in the city and the population has been on a steady decline for the past few years. Detroit may have the size but no longer has the numbers. A "World Class" city it's not. It could be, with new leadership...and maybe one day it will be. If you had used another adjective other than "Bad," your question would be easier to answer. Specifically, what exactly do you mean by "Bad," anyway? And please don't think I'm flaming you, because I'm not. It's just that there are a lot of ways to categorize a city as being bad. A city could be bad for not having 5-star restaurants, as it could be bad for having a high crime rate, to give you two extremes. I will say that Detroit is a "unique," city, and I say that not in a good way. It has problems facing it that are different from all other major cities in the country -- other than maybe Newark, I should say. I'm putting myself in a difficult situation, in that I want to stay away from race issues here, but rather discuss concepts, but with Detroit, even trying to discuss it conceptually, one has to get into race. But you look at it's history, Detroit has always been a very segregated metropolitan area, to the extent that now it is the most segregated major metropolitan area in the country. I was trying to find the name or Mr. Jacobson, the founder of the Jacobson retail chain, and I couldn't find it. I wanted his name in order to quote him, but now I'll just reference him. But it relates to 1967 during the riots here in Detroit. He had a store on the west side of Detroit, and while watching it burn and looted, he made an observation that he believed that it wasn't a race riot, that it was an economic riot, as he watched both whites and blacks throwing rocks, leaving his store, an generally contributing to the mayhem. I say this because after the riots there was a mass exodus of the middle class out of Detroit. And regardless of your opinion, statistics show that Coleman Young didn't help the cause, either. With this mass exodus to the suburbs, and this is both blacks ans white of means. Detroit lost much of it's tax base and wealth. Until very recently, if you compare business growth in Detroit with the surroundings suburbs, statistically, Detroit's growth almost rounds out to zero. Because of this what's left is rather surprising. 1. Detroit has the least number of college educated inhabitants of any major city. 2. 70% of Detroit's population is on some form of transer payment, whether it be welfare, SSI, Disability, or whatever. 3. Detroit has experience a greater population loss than any other major northern city in the past 30 years. It could be said that generally speaking, the people left in Detroit are the only ones lacking the means to get out! If you look at a city like Chicago, you will find pockets of poor neighborhoods, intermingled with largely middle class neighbourhood and even find some rather well-established affluent neighborhoods. You don't find that in Detroit. Detroit is largely poor, with a few middle class neighborhoods, and perhaps two very small areas that would be considered affluent, although some would argue those are more upper-middle class, and not affluent. I tend to think those are one and the same, but enough with the symantics. The key to Detroit's problems is to create a substantial middle class where practically non exits at all. In order to do this, you have to bring people back to the city to live there, not to just party at the Super Bowl. But in order to do this, you have to increase city services, where Detroit hasn't the money to do so. You have to make the schools better, and not only does Detroit not have the money, but with the federal grants they do receive, apparently they don't know how to do it. And with this, there are many other things that have to be done where the city lacks the wherewithal to perform these tasks. Along with this, public perception have to change. I am an east sider having lived close to Detroit most of my life. As a youth, I spent many years working on the Bob-Lo boats. I've gotten drunk on Belle Isle many times, and played softball there. I attened Wayne State, spend as much time at the Old Sheleleigh as possible, and frequent Greek Town. When some of my friends here about where I'm going, they think I'm nuts! "You are going to Detroit?" they exclaim in utter surprise. And these are people that have lived here all their lives! Detroit has a high crime rate, but that doesn't mean you are going to be shot at the moment you cross the boarder... But there is a prevailing attitude amongst far too many surburbanites that Detroit is a war zone, and that if you aren't shot at, robbed, stabbed, or accosted in some manner, your car will definitely be stolen before you take 20 steps from it after you park. We all know this ain't true either. So what do you do? I have no answers other than to keep doing what I'm doing, and to try to dispel the utter ignorant attitudes of my fellow suburbanites. And I'm hopeful this may give you some insight into why Detroit may be a "bad" city... |
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