

The sad state of Detroit: outlook falls with home prices - dcurtis
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-detroit-housingjan29,0,5435392.story

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showerst
Having experienced East St. Louis (and most of North St. Louis), reading about
places like Detroit and Buffalo, I start to wonder, at one point do we just
decide to 'give up' on a city?

Are there modern cases of abandonment of a major metropolitan area? (I don't
mean losing 50+% of population, or large-scale migration to the suburbs like
STL, I mean actual wholesale abandonment of a city).

It seems that with hundreds of thousands of people, Detroit and NOLA are still
going to survive for quite a while, but at what point do we just declare a
city below critical-mass for survival and start working on transitioning
people out?

At some point it has to cost far more to provide fire and other basic service
coverage to these heavily-built but sparsely inhabited areas than they could
ever hope to return in revenue. Cities regularly clear out large areas for
urban rehab or sports stadiums, would it be plausible (if even ethical) to
just buy out 50,000 people and ask them to leave?

~~~
tlb
It's hard to imagine anything on that scale. Centralia PA (former pop. 2600)
was deserted due to major underground fires. But real cities have bounced back
from far larger disasters. Hiroshima lost 2/3 of its population but recovered
in 10 years.

Remember, though, the actual city of Detroit is only 1/5 of the population of
the metro area. While Detroit is failing, the metro area is only hurting. It
won't be abandoned.

~~~
dantheman
Note: The fires at Centralia will be burning for 100 years -- they cause sink
holes and other dangers.

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RWilson
Lower your burn, move to Detroit and buy a house for 2-3 months SF rent.

~~~
randallsquared
Problem is, the houses are that cheap for good reason.

~~~
patio11
Supply for them exceeds demand. That would depress the price of flawless
diamonds.

Here's an anecdote for you: in Nagoya, you can pay $700 a month for a one-room
apartment. Not an awesomely located fully-furnished palatial one room
apartment, just your generic twenty-something sleeping quarters which is about
the size of many Americans' closet.

In my town, I pay $450 a month for a three-room apartment. It was so clean
when I moved in that I suspected they had put artificial sparkle on the walls.

The whole of the reason it is cheap and Nagoya is not is that my town, sort of
like Detroit, has some systemic economic issues which discourage young people
from living there. Accordingly, after graduation they move to Nagoya to work,
pushing the price of real estate there even higher and making landlords in my
town even more desperate to offload inventory.

~~~
ghshephard
Without getting into a "mine is bigger than yours" game - I'd just like to
note that I have a 600 square foot bachelor-suite (no bedroom), in a very,
very old apartment building overlooking (complete with sound) the 101 freeway
in a low income (and un-walkable) neighborhood of Redwood City and pay
$1210/month + $65 water/sewer/garbage.

On the flip side, I used to fly out to Detroit and was interested in some of
these $10,000 houses, but we could never work up the nerve to actually go into
the neighborhoods out near 8 mile that had them, and I can't imagine living
there.

Has anyone on HN been out to Detroit recently? There are many parts of that
city that are like a war zone in terms of building/lot damage, and others that
I would not go without armed escort. I guess this is just another way of
saying the "absolute value" of property is pretty low in Detroit as well.

It's kind of like the "Anti-Paul-Graham-Geographic-Recipe-for-a-successful-
startup-community" type of environment.

~~~
nradov
You're getting ripped off.
[http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&minAsk...](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&minAsk=min&maxAsk=1210&bedrooms=&neighborhood=84)

~~~
nostrademons
Not by much. Most of those places seem to go for $1150-$1200.

~~~
nradov
Most of them have more space.

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mynameishere
Well, that made for some surreal reading.

 _There is no major grocery chain in the city, and only two movie theaters_

I grew up in a town of 2000 people and we had 2 chain grocery stores. I'm
guessing a walmart would be robbed blind, especially with an explicit
corporate no-kill policy.

~~~
ojbyrne
The theater part seems to be overdramatized:
[http://www.google.ca/movies?hl=en&near=detroit&dq=de...](http://www.google.ca/movies?hl=en&near=detroit&dq=detroit+movie+times&ei=iqisSZy6FoOftwfIo6WKBg&sa=X&oi=showtimes&ct=title&cd=1)

~~~
dcurtis
There are two in Detroit. Warren, MI, where the next closest theater is, is
half an hour away.

~~~
ojbyrne
That's the way it is in at least 75% of US cities. The "Donut-hole" phenomena
is long standing. Just as an example, Detroit seems to have a comparable
number of screens to Los Angeles proper:
[http://www.google.ca/movies?sc=1&hl=en&near=los+ange...](http://www.google.ca/movies?sc=1&hl=en&near=los+angeles&rl=1)

The multiplex is almost always at least _somewhat_ suburban.

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jacoblyles
If it weren't for the immobility of building capital, Detroit would probably
no longer exist. As is, it exists only because of the low level of demand for
its buildings makes it the kind of place that the poor and desperate can
afford to live, which further lowers the level of demand for its buildings.

~~~
mojonixon
Not even the homeless are moving into the city. The poor and desperate can't
afford to leave. Sell your grandfather's house for 10k and go where? Once
houses really become worthless, even more people will begin to walk away.

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albertcardona
Since when the solution to all problems is a government bailout? A bailout is
the kind of "temporary" measure that Ayn Rand mocked so heavily in her now
famous book.

