Six crazy ideas for saving Detroit

[GCBill]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023305210

ErikJ (2,959 posts)   Sat Jul 20, 2013, 09:04 PM

6. Give Detroit to Canada

Detroit is one of the few parts of the United States (other than Alaska) that’s actually north of Canada: The city of Windsor, Ontario, lies south of it. So why not make this Canada’s problem? Much of the city’s fiscal problems boil down to retiree benefits. For example, it has $5.7 billion in unfunded retiree benefits and $3.5 billion in unfunded pensions. Luckily, Canada has a single-payer health-care system and not one but two publicly funded pension systems. Let those pay off the debt!

Canada’s provinces do more for municipalities than our states do for cities. Toronto gets 19 percent of its budget from the Ontario and Canadian federal governments. That’s much more than U.S. cities typically get. Ontario’s generally in better shape than Michigan, which is good news for tax money going to Detroit. Toronto and Ottawa are better cities to have helping you out than, say, Flint.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/20/six-crazy-ideas-for-saving-detroit/?tid=pm_business_pop

They have single payer health care! Surely they would get Detroit back on track?

"Hey Canada, we have a great deal for you! Hundreds of thousands of poorly maintained 80 to 100 year old buildings, many filled with murderous crackheads! Jump on it now! Venezuela has been calling, but we want to hook you up with this Deal Of The Century."

[I_B_Perky]

Man dummies are stupid! If this dummie is advocating that Canada takes over Detroit... something tells me that Canada will have a resounding no!!!

Personally I think that if Canada is interested, we give Detroit to them lock, stock and barrel. The catch would be that all Detroit folks would have to renounce their American citizenship. No choice in the matter either. They voted for their government, they own it.

Except for maybe the Hard Core Pawn folks.  I'm betting they would move their business to Chicago and make even more money.

[Dori]

Does Detroit have anything good going for it?

[obumazombie]

Why can't we give it to Mexico, or put so many people on one side of it that it tips over into the Saint Clair river ?

[JohnnyReb]

Does Detroit have anything good going for it?

Yes....it's going to hell in a hand basket.

[GOBUCKS]

Detroit is one of the few parts of the United States (other than Alaska) that’s actually north of Canada.

DUmp democrats are among those who can't identify South America or India on a globe, so this statement isn't a surprise.

At least a quarter of the United States is north of Windsor, Ontario, including the entire blue shithole of New England.

[Freeper]

OMG there is a DUmmy fight over cars are what destroyed Detroit.

Star Member ErikJ (2,958 posts)
2. Rip the freeways out of inner Detroit and put in streetcars

They put these monsters intersecting Detroit 60 years ago and they made it way too easy for the residents to commute back and forth to the burbs from work which eventually drained the tax base out of Detroit.

So in other words keep the residents captive by not allowing them to drive. 

Star Member former9thward (6,982 posts)
4. And what would these people do?

There would not be one employer without freeways.

Star Member ErikJ (2,958 posts)
9. I said just inner Detroit..... at least.

Lot of the poor dont haqve cars anyway so those freeways arent helping them. Freeways just encourage more commuting and car dependency. the point is to encourage people to live NEAR work downtown so they dont even need a car.

 

Star Member former9thward (6,982 posts)
11. The employers want and need freeways.

Without freeways GM who is the biggest employer in Detroit would be out of town in a minute.

Star Member ErikJ (2,958 posts)
18. BS. Cars are what are ultimately destroying Detroit.

They need much better mass transit system and streetcars. Freeways just encourage sprawl and urban decay.

 

You know what's really harming Florida? Oranges. 

Star Member former9thward (6,982 posts)
21. Are those street cars going to bring supplies to factories and business?

You know -- the things that employ people. This is 2013 not 1913.

Star Member ErikJ (2,958 posts)
6. No, make the whole Metro area into one big city.

Too many governments makes it too confusing for a large continuity population . A single govt to handle all the taxes, planning and infrastrucure mainteneance is much better. The big problem for Detroit is that the tax base is out in the burbs but none is available for core Detroit.

Do you know why the tax base moved out of Detroit? Democrats that's why.

I loved this post.

Star Member Dreamer Tatum (7,377 posts)
27. Nothing brings in hard currency quite like a theater group.

Except perhaps mimes or caricaturists.

 

Detroit is a great example of what happens when liberals run things. The worst part is, the DUmmies want this for the entire country.

[obumazombie]

Yeah, centralized government planning, that's the ticket. The former USSR used to be expert at that. Maybe some from that regime are still around and could be consultants.

[GCBill]

Gravitycollapse (2,346 posts)
45. That's not how gentrification works. Impoverished artists move into low rent areas...

The middle and upper class population fund these artists and that then creates a community of wealth consumption generally in the form of bars and restaurants. Which gives incentive for the local police to provide a greater presence along the periphery of these zones of wealth. This drives out lower income residents (read:minorities) further incentivizing upwardly mobile white people to move in. This increases property values, driving up rent and property tax. Poor minorities, who see no job benefits from this movement, can no longer afford to live there and have to move out.

Increased rent further incentivizes the immigration of upwardly mobile persons, encouraging greater policing, the destruction of low income housing and the driving out, through economic and social prejudice, of poor minorities.

This is gentrification. It does not help poor minority communities. It blows them apart.

So people with money moving into the city is BAD BAD RACIST PIG GENTRIFICATION BAD!

I guess if the few remaining cared for neighborhoods went to hell with weeds, crime, shuttered businesses, and decayed and burned out buildings Detroit would be an absolute UTOPIA for poor minorities!

"My baby was bit by 3 rats, and my sister was carjacked while getting gas at Van Dyke and Outer Drive, but $300 a month rent makes it all worthwhile!"

[dandi]

Give the Canucks Love Canal, too. I'm sure they'd enjoy having that as much a having Detroit.

[GOBUCKS]

Give the Canucks Love Canal, too. I'm sure they'd enjoy having that as much a having Detroit.

Love Canal, that poisoned place Algore claimed to have discovered, was as much a hoax as his claim to have invented the internet.

The media was — and continues to be — complicit in all of the hysteria. However, the $3 million study has found no relationship between having had a home in the Love Canal area or of having attended school there, despite the fact that, by the 1960s and 1970s, contaminated groundwater was leaching into back yards and the school grounds. As the State Health Department reported in 2001, there was no greater incidence of cancer among the people who formerly lived in the Love Canal area than for any other comparable group of upstate New Yorkers.

Love Canal, the famed pit of environmental pestilence, was remarkably benign.

http://www.proconservative.net/PCVol7Is008CarubaLoveCanalRevisited.shtml

[Rebel]

ZX86 (166 posts)
19. I'm no expert on urban planning.

But from what I've witnessed people from poor countries bring skills and work ethic that create their own economies.

Hmm, what does that say about the indigenous Detroiters? 

[Karin]

^^ That was pretty funny watching Eric "Streetcar" J, digging in his heels and insisting his idea was brilliant.  And yes, he does want to create a little prison, from which there is no escape.  Pretty evil if you ask me.

[Wineslob]

Put a 30 foot tall chain link fence around Detroit. Cut off all power and water.

[jukin]

I had to change positions but......

DUchebag: 1+1=POTATO

DUmpmonkey: I'm afraid you are wrong,1+1=2

DUchebag: You are ****ing wrong. 1+1=POTATO!!

DUmpmonkey: No, 1+1=2 because they are both numbers.

DUchebag: What you fail to see is that 1+1=POTATO!!!!!!!!! Freeper.
 
DUmpmonkey: No, 1+1=2 NOT potato because a potato is a root vegetable and not a number.

DUchebag: You fail to take the basic premise that 1+1=POTATO. Why do you fail to understand that 1+1=POTATO?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!! Maybe you would be more comfortable at Stormfront.

DUmpmonkey: I'm a democrat but what part of a potato is root vegetable and not a number don't you understand?

DUchebag: I can't believe that you are spouting right-wing, gun nut, Nazi, racist, hate filled talking points. Everyone here is super smart and we all agree that 1+1=POTATO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Enjoy your stay.
 
DUmpmonkey: I have always been a progressive, even in the womb. 1+1=2 because 2 is a number and potato is a root vegetable. Hey maybe someday potato will be a number but it isn't now.

DUchebag: It's because of racist hate filled assholes like you that we will never get to the socialist utopia that is 1+1=POTATO.

[JohnnyReb]

A rural fire departments tanker/firetruck loaded with 4,000 gallon mix of 1/3 gas and 2/3 diesel fuel and a box of matches would be a good beginning.

[DefiantSix]

A rural fire departments tanker/firetruck loaded with 4,000 gallon mix of 1/3 gas and 2/3 diesel fuel and a box of matches would be a good beginning.

For a shithole like Detroit, I'd expect nothing less than one of those DC-10 air drop tankers with such a load-out as you describe to get the job done. 

[J P Sousa]

  So in other words keep the residents captive by not allowing them to drive.   

Well, it might keep them out of the suburbs.   
.

[Wineslob]

[DefiantSix]

  It's the only way to be sure.

[diesel driver]

I was wondering when that was going to show up.      

Save a couple for Chitown, too.   

[Big Dog]

Put a 30 foot tall chain link fence around Detroit. Cut off all power and water.

You just gave John Carpenter the idea for his next movie...

Escape From New York III
This time it's Detroit, But without that cool Crow guy

[freedumb2003b]

I had to change positions but......

DUchebag: 1+1=POTATO

DUmpmonkey: I'm afraid you are wrong,1+1=2

DUchebag: You are ****ing wrong. 1+1=POTATO!!

DUmpmonkey: No, 1+1=2 because they are both numbers.

DUchebag: What you fail to see is that 1+1=POTATO!!!!!!!!! Freeper.
 
DUmpmonkey: No, 1+1=2 NOT potato because a potato is a root vegetable and not a number.

DUchebag: You fail to take the basic premise that 1+1=POTATO. Why do you fail to understand that 1+1=POTATO?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!! Maybe you would be more comfortable at Stormfront.

DUmpmonkey: I'm a democrat but what part of a potato is root vegetable and not a number don't you understand?

DUchebag: I can't believe that you are spouting right-wing, gun nut, Nazi, racist, hate filled talking points. Everyone here is super smart and we all agree that 1+1=POTATO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Enjoy your stay.
 
DUmpmonkey: I have always been a progressive, even in the womb. 1+1=2 because 2 is a number and potato is a root vegetable. Hey maybe someday potato will be a number but it isn't now.

DUchebag: It's because of racist hate filled assholes like you that we will never get to the socialist utopia that is 1+1=POTATO.

Ah man, you have killed the need for the DUMpster, since you have captured all threads in the DUmp, past, present AND future!

[freedumb2003b]

You just gave John Carpenter the idea for his next movie...

Escape From New York III
This time it's Detroit, But without that cool Crow guy

I think Dark Star has the better solution...
 

[GOBUCKS]

In the case of Detroit, apply that solution to the entire state.