{"id":11941,"date":"2013-07-19T17:22:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T16:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=11941"},"modified":"2013-07-19T22:59:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T21:59:25","slug":"the-decline-and-decline-of-detroit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=11941","title":{"rendered":"The decline and decline of Detroit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The city of Detroit used to be one of the most dynamic in the United States, but it has suffered a steady decline over a period of 60 years and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2013\/jul\/18\/detroit-verge-bankruptcy-kevyn-orr-talks\">it has now filed for bankruptcy<\/a>. Detroit is the US&#8217;s 18th most populous city and the largest by far to go into bankruptcy. The figures are shocking:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Detroit has long term debt of $18.5 billion (\u00a312 billion).<\/li>\n<li>In 1950, it was a city of 2 million but it is now home to about 700,000.<\/li>\n<li>Since 2000, the unemployment rate has nearly tripled and is now more than double the national average.<\/li>\n<li>Some 36% of Detroiters live below the poverty line.<\/li>\n<li>The city&#8217;s murder rate is at the highest level in nearly 40 years.<\/li>\n<li>It has been named one of the most dangerous cities in America for more than 20 years.<\/li>\n<li>Citizens wait 58 minutes for the police to respond to calls compared with a national average of 11 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Only a third of ambulances were in service in the first quarter of 2013.<\/li>\n<li>Around half of all the 85,000 street lights are out of service because thieves have stripped them for copper.<\/li>\n<li>There are about 78,000 abandoned buildings in the city.<\/li>\n<li>One third of its 140 square miles is vacant or derelict.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Clearly there has been industrial decline and municipal mismanagement on a large scale, but I can&#8217;t help feeling that the basic collapse of a major city in the world&#8217;s richest nation tells us something about the economic and political governance of the United States. Perhaps my American friends can shed some light on the appalling situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The city of Detroit used to be one of the most dynamic in the United States, but it has suffered a steady decline over a period of 60 years and it has now filed for bankruptcy. Detroit is the US&#8217;s 18th most populous city and the largest by far to go into bankruptcy. The figures [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11941"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11955,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11941\/revisions\/11955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}