Detroit: Ghost Town, Third World America

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Detroit: Ghost Town, Third World America

http://www.wntube.net/uploads/2qsm7knbyacmgski.flv

Note: this was the only site I could find the clip at -- The CSR


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JbGxIR8JTk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvB15jum ... re=related

[Ognir]

Damn

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Detroit homes sell for $1 amid mortgage and car industry crisis

One in five houses left empty as foreclosures mount and property prices drop by 80%

    * Chris McGreal, in Detroit
    * guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 March 2010 19.45 GMT
    * Article history

Fallen leaves blow past an empty home in Detroit. Photograph: Rebecca Cook/Reuters

Some might say Jon Brumit overpaid when he stumped up $100 (£65) for a whole house. Drive through Detroit neighbourhoods once clogged with the cars that made the city the envy of America and there are homes to be had for a single dollar.

You find these houses among boarded-up, burnt-out and rotting buildings lining deserted streets, places where the population is shrinking so fast entire blocks are being demolished to make way for urban farms.

"I was living in Chicago and a friend told me that houses in Detroit could be had for $500," said Brumit, a financially strapped artist who thought he had little prospect of owning his own property. "I said if you hear of anything just a little cheaper let me know. Within a week he emails me a photo of a house for $100. I thought that's just crazy. Why not? It's a way to cut our expenses way down and kind of open up a lot of time for creative projects because we're not working to pay the rent."

Houses on sale for a few dollars are something of an urban legend in the US on the back of the mortgage crisis that drove millions of people from their homes. But in Detroit it is no myth.

One in five houses now stand empty in the city that launched the automobile age, forged America's middle-class and blessed the world with Motown.

Detroit has been in decline for decades; its falling population is now well below a million – half of its 1950 peak. But the recent mortgage crisis and the fall of the big car makers into bankruptcy has pushed the town into a realm unique among big cities in America.

A third of the population are unemployed. Property prices have fallen 80% or more in large parts of Detroit over the last three years. The average price of a home sold in the city last year has been put at $7,500 (£4,900).

The recent financial crash forced wholesale foreclosures among people unable to pay their mortgages or who walked away from houses that fell to a fraction of the value of the loans they had taken out on them.

Banks are selling off properties in the worst neighbourhoods, which are usually surrounded by empty and wrecked housing, for a few dollars each. But even better houses can be had at a fraction of their former value.

Technically, Brumit paid $95 for the land and $5 for the house on Lawley Street – which fitted what estate agents euphemistically call an opportunity.

Brumit said: "It had a big hole in the roof from the fire department putting out the last of two arson attempts. Both previous owners tried to set it on fire to get out of the mortgages. So there's a big hole about 24ft long and the plumbing had almost entirely been ripped out and most of the electrics too. It was basically a smoke damaged, structurally intact shell with a snowdrift in the attic."

Setting fire to houses to claim the insurance and kill off the mortgage is not uncommon in Detroit; a blackened, wooden corpse of a house sits at the bottom of Brumit's street. But it is more common for owners to just walk away from their homes and mortgages.

On the opposite side of Lawley Street Jim Feltner and his workers were clearing out a property seized by a bank. "I used to be a building contractor. I was buying up places and doing them up. Now I empty out foreclosures. I do one or two of these a day all over the city," he said. "I've been in Detroit 40 years and I've watched the peak up to $100,000 for houses that right now aren't worth more than $20,000 tops. I own a bunch of properties. I have 10 rentals and I can't get nothing for them, and they're beautiful homes."

Feltner's workers are dragging clothes, boots and furniture out of the bedrooms and living room, and dumping them in the front yard until a skip arrives. Kicked to one side is a box of 1970s Motown records. A teddy bear lies spreadeagled on the floor.

"You could get about five grand for this place," said Feltner. "Nice house once you clean it out. All the plumbing and electricals are in it. Roof don't leak."

Brumit said a man called Jesse lived there. "Jesse had mentioned that he was probably going to get out of there because he knew he could buy a place for so much less than he owed. That's a drag. You don't want to see people leaving," he said.

The house next door is abandoned. On the next street, one third of the properties are boarded up.

It's a story replicated across Detroit.

Joan Wilson, an estate agent in the north-west of the city, whose firm is offering a three-bedroom house on Albany street for $1, says that more than half of the houses she sells are foreclosures in the tens of thousands of dollars. "The vast majority of people that call to enquire, almost the first thing out of their mouth is that they want to buy a foreclosure. I have had telephone calls from people looking online that live, for example, in England or California, who've never set foot in the area. They're calling about one specific house they see online. I tell them they need to look at the neighbourhood. Is it the only house standing within a mile?"

But what is blight to some is proving an opportunity to remake parts of the city for others living there. The Old Redford part of Detroit has suffered its share of desolation. The police station, high school and community centre are closed. Yet the area is being revitalised, led by John George, a resident who began by boarding up an abandoned house used by drug dealers 21 years ago and who now heads the community group Blight Busters. They are pulling down housing that cannot be saved and creating community gardens with fresh vegetables free for anyone to pick.

"There's longstanding nuisance houses, been around seven, eight, nine years. We will go in without a permit and demolish them without permission," said George. "If you, as an owner, are going to leave something like that to fester in my neighbourhood, obviously you either don't care or aren't in a position to take responsibility for your property, so we're going to take care of it for you." Blight Busters has torn down more than 200 houses, including recently an entire block of abandoned housing in Old Redford. "We need to right-size this community, which means removing whole blocks, and building farms, larger gardens, putting in windmills. We want to downsize – right-size – Detroit," George said.

Houses that can be rescued are done up with grants from foundations.

"Detroit has some of the nicest housing stock in the country. Brick, marble, hardwood floors, leaded glass. These houses were built for kings," George added. "We gave a $90,000 house to a lady who was living in a car. She had four children. It didn't cost her a dime. We had over a thousand people apply for it. It's probably worth $35,000 now."

Old Redford is seeing piecemeal renewal. One abandoned block of shops has been converted to an arts centre and music venue with cafes. One of the few remaining cinemas in Detroit – and one that's among the last in the US with an original pipe organ – has been revived and is showing Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Brumit calculates that he has spent $1,500 to buy and do up his house,


He said: "The Americans we know got ripped off by the American dream. But [the renovation] is the most like moving out of the country that we can actually do. We're the minority in terms of ethnicity and this is a rich environment ... there's 30% open space in the city and that doesn't include the buildings that should be torn down. You're in a city riding your bike around and you hear birds and stuff. It's incredible."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010 ... losures-80

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Detroit & Depression
By Jim Kirwan
4-2-10



LBJ created something called The Model-Cities Program as part of his "Great Society." That failed massively then; but has now been dug-up to become part of the New Detroit which will represent administrative-obscenity on a scale as yet unimaginable, where private-enterprise will be unopposed as it builds its own version of "community," for what it calls "folks." Had these people most directly affected in Detroit actually been "citizens" this could not be happening. Slaves have never had any voice in what their owners do!
 
"CITIZEN: 3. a member of a state or nation, especially one with a republican form of government, who owes allegiance to it by birth or naturalization and is entitled to full civil rights." New World Dictionary
 
There are actually a number of different ideas that Detroit and this depression could come to stand for, such as becoming the national tombstone for democracy and freedom. The first of these contributing factors ought to be Ayn Rand's political philosophy from Atlas Shrugged: wherein the only people that matter at all were the industrialists and corporate giants that were supposedly responsible for everything wonderful in America or anywhere else. These are the people that have kicked out the social networks, the grass-roots organizations and virtually any and all links or connections between the people that live in Detroit now and those that plan on owning every blade of industrial-grass to be grown in 'Detroit' tomorrow. Everything in the New Detroit will be created along the lines of corporate models that are surrealistic in their other-worldly demands.
 
For instance: No student shall be allowed to be late for school more than four times in a year or they will be expelled: the reason for being late is irrelevant: because for the corporate managers "being on time" is far more important than dealing with those problems that happen most frequently to the poorest among us. Everything in the New Detroit will be decided by corporate models that have nothing to do with giving anyone in their new City any voice in either education or planning, or even just in living there: Because just as in the illustration above ­ the only priority will be the bottom-line concerns of the privatized management of the entire city, beginning with the land itself, and the school districts that shall be corporate to the core.
 
In fact the enemy in Detroit is the one thing that could save us all: That would be the humanities and the human voices of the citizens that could actually be heard in direct and valid opposition to the corporate machinery which pretends to be human: If Detroit were part of the old America that might have been possible during the time when corporations had been leashed and chained for their crimes against people during the days of the Robber-Barons.' But every single one of those controls over corporations were systematically removed by every president since JFK: Now the Robber-Barons have returned as the much more powerful New World Order, no longer just stealing Americans blind but now they want to do this to the entire planet.
 
It's ironic that Education is the prime example here because the entire American public-school model for public-education was originally modeled on the automobile assembly line: Which has been utterly demolished now thanks to Cheney-Bush-Obama. But 'back-in-the-day' it was thought that if cars could be built so quickly and efficiently by using an assembly line, then
education could be done the same way: Building excellence one-student at a time: Except that people are not machines and humans require a great deal more than just being assembled according to some very specific blueprints. In fact people are the opposite of the junk we have created "to assist us" which we so proudly call computers. Contrary to corporate policy, computers are here to assist us and not to own us outright!
 
However if you look at what is being planned for Detroit, thanks to the total dominance of private-partnerships in collusion with the New Robber-Barons that now own the entire US government outright, through a recent Supreme Court decision that removed all controls over corporate activity in American politics ­ thus killing any 'public voice' which the public was supposed to have through the ballot box. So there is no longer any way to challenge the almighty powers of the purse; except by refusing to pay into that public-purse in the first place.
 
In another of Ayn Rand's wet-dreams, this one of architectural excellence called 'The Fountainhead,' her architect wanted to give people sterile new housing that was affordable and in his view beautiful: In a nation where corporate-private-power was to be worshipped and celebrated as the only virtue worth promoting. Well we're there now and the basterds at the top have done everything wrong: How else could Detroit-the-Motor-City, have turned into the poster for Detroit-the-Depression-City that is leading America into the Twenty-First Century as proof-positive that everything PRIVATIATION stands for, or has stood for, has been nothing but LIES!
 
Privatization and the corporate bottom-line are what led this government in collusion with the formerly "Supreme Court," to erase any real-property ownership of anything in this country-beginning with personal-property in particular. Also killed was any other possibility, even before it was created; that might have been able to bring about a return to anything except the continuation of the very policies that are killing us each and every day, in every city in America: Not just in Detroit the Depression Capital of the USA!
 
The current Mayor of Detroit in emulation of George W. Bush, the American traitor has appointed himself as the dictator of Detroit, during these final days of siege and destruction; that will be replaced by industrial farm-land, rather than anything like a community or a society that stands for anything except another official government camp for 'workers in a "Great Society" without a public voice.
 
"DETROIT MAYOR DAVE BING: Tonight I am unveiling a plan to demolish 3,000 dangerous residential structures this year and setting a goal of 10,000 by the end of this term. The Obama administration has already committed $20 million to the neighborhood stabilization program to fund this effort and we're making our case for additional support. We are also going after the owners and developers who neglect their property because they think it is the city's job to clean up their mess through board-ups and demolitions.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Detroit. Give us the lay of the land, this looks like the epicenter of the recession and unemployment inAmerica.
 
SHARON "SHEA" HOWELL: Well, Detroit is the epicenter not just of the epicenter in unemployment, but really the end of major cities that were created by industrial production. Detroit has been the first post-industrial city to face the question of how do we reinvent ourselves now that the large-scale mass production that made us no longer exists anywhere in the United State. In some ways, what the mayor is talking about is nothing new. Every mayor since 1958 has tried to demolish abandoned structures in the city because since 1950, our population has been shrinking, not growing. Since 1950, we've gone from nearly two million people to less than a million. So we do have a problem of abandoned structures. No one is not saying he should not knockdown abandoned buildings, but what we are saying is that he should not use eminent domain to demand that people leave their homes that they are preserved through all of this shrinking, and we are saying he should not turn this land over for industrial farm use. Or any other unknown purpose he has yet to articulate.
 
AMY GOODMAN: Who determines what areas are bulldozed and what remains?
 
SHARON "SHEA" HOWELL: Well currently, it appears the mayor is determining that, but he has not shared with anyone what criteria he is using to demolish any of these structures. And if you look at previous demolition efforts, those have been driven by concerns for public safety and by concerns for school locations to protect schoolchildren from walking around abandoned houses. But the mayor's criteria has not been shared with anyone. Most housing surveys say that 95% of the housing stock is still in fair to good condition, so some of what his demolishing are really houses people could live in." More at the link (1)
 
 

 
This was and still is the Toll-Road to The Abolition of Poverty, back in the days when LBJ's Great Society was supposedly trying to create 'change.' (2)
 
But now with Detroit as the focal point supported by similar activities now underway in New Orleans and Chicago; how long will it be before all of 'education' is privatized, and what's left of America's cities has become nothing more than warehouses for the poor and the voiceless where there will be no real jobs ever again: No future beyond a series of fantastic watercolor-illustrations that the government will offer the public, but that will fade even before the end of the year.
 
This is a not just a class war anymore; it's a war to destroy the minds and dreams of everyone not willing to become a machine or to increase the number of those willing to surrender entirely to the corporate monsters and to the global corporate governance of malevolent evil that will only stop when people force it to stop: by drying up the funds it needs to sustain this unholy war upon the citizens and the people of this country.
 
No doubt the ghosts of the ancestors of the native populations are looking on; having come to know that this had to happen because of what took place before, by design and on purpose. This is the other side of the inhumanity behind Manifest Destiny that tried to build on the blood and death they created by slaughtering the people that had lived here for tens-of-thousands of years before the opportunists came to steal whatever they could find. It's called rebalancing the natural order of things ­ and Detroit will become the poster-child for the continuing privatized-corporate-folly that will spend hundreds of billions more dollars before failing utterly. The plan is not for the rebuilding of Detroit or the education system of America: The Plan is to redistribute ever more of the stolen-wealth by Deception through Demolition and Deceit so that once the Depression fully takes hold; it will not be possible to ever go back to anything viable again!
 
People need to decide whether or not they want to be mere adjuncts to computers or if they really want to have some say in what their lives will look like in the very near future? If the corporations get their way: you will not be allowed to say or do anything again, without their very specific and detailed permission: "Papers Please!" (3)
 
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/2/community
_activists_criticize_detroit_urban_renewal
 
2) The State of the Nation 1966 http://www.kirwanesque.com/politics/okl ... lahoma.htm
 
3) Papers, Please ­ The Identity Project http://www.unrealid.com/wp/

http://www.rense.com/general90/detroit.htm

[scorpio]

Great post....I hope that isn't a glimpse into the future of the USA.
I wonder what the crime stats. are like around there....especially violent crime.