

Detroit's population crashes down 25% from 2000 - jprobert
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704461304576216850733151470.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

======
justinph
This is disappointing news, but I still have a lot of hope for Detroit. The
desert southwest is running out of fresh water due to climate change and over-
use. Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, even Atlanta, they're all unsustainable.
If they're unsustainable, eventually they have to stop.

Detroit, and other cities in the rust belt, generally have plentiful fresh
water, not to mention natural infrastructure waiting to be re-used (harbors,
rivers, etc). If I was making a 100 year bet, I wouldn't bet on Vegas, I'd bet
on Detroit.

~~~
solson
I agree. In the long run Detroit has potential. But before they can make any
economic strides they need to fix their bloated corrupt city government.

If you want to make a real 100 year bet on Detroit, buy some real estate now,
it has never been cheaper. In some places you could buy an entire city block
for a few grand. You could will it to your grandchildren. I've considered it,
but haven't convinced my wife... yet.

~~~
cheez
Rockefeller didn't listen to his wife :)

~~~
solson
Yeah, I ain't Rockefeller.

But the biggest reason I haven't done it is the city government. The above
reasons not to invest in Detroit are clear - taxes, unknown assessments,
liability. Allowing some of the land to go fallow or zoned agricultural or a
long property tax holiday would help tremendously. The most expensive thing
about living in Detroit are the taxes and the regulation if you can live
through the crime.

------
evo_9
I'm also from Detroit and this is really tough to read about.

Detroit does have a great opportunity in all this though - there are a lot of
talented people still living in and around the city. It would seem like the
ideal location for some truly innovative automotive advancements and with the
push for more green and eco-friendly cars, I'm surprised there aren't a few
startup communities designed to engage this currently dormant group of
potential hackers.

~~~
klous
There are a few startup and hacker communities in Detroit, namely DNewTech,
i3Detroit, OmniCorpDetroit. DNewTech meets monthly, with a keynote speaker and
showcases 5 startups.

~~~
jeffepp
Check out <http://fundedbynight.com>. There are a lot of passionate people
working on building a startup community in Metro Detroit.

Anyone interested should email me.

------
jprobert
Being from Detroit this brings a tear to my eye but it presents opportunity
for many people to establish new companies very cheaply.

~~~
noodle
it seems to me that the issue now becomes talent. a lot of talent has left,
and the money you save in starting a company will probably need to be spent in
getting talent to detroit.

~~~
rmason
That's where you're wrong. Population of the greater Detroit metropolitan area
is 5.4 million and people forget that when they talk about what's happening in
the city of Detroit.

The talent is there and there's a large number of people who have left and
would return in a heartbeat if the jobs were there.

Michigan's new governor is a former VC and the state is staking their future
on startups and entrepreneurs. He's trying to lower taxes, smaller companies
will pay zero taxes under his plan.

However Michigan's unions are fighting him tooth and nail even though he is
not challenging their power directly like the governors in Wisconsin and Ohio.
So despite the voters giving him a majority in both legislatures he may not
achieve everything he wants. What there won't be are the huge government
handouts to favored companies that the previous governor was fond of using.

~~~
nbroyal
I think this is a bit disingenuous. I highly doubt Michigan's unions are
fighting him tooth and nail on plans to lower taxes and ease the burden for
smaller companies.

They are, however, fighting him on the ability to deploy to cities in
financial disarray state appointed "emergency managers" who can override
elected officials and, most importantly to the unions, cut union contracts.
[1]

Now, you could argue that the emergency financial manager plan would
eventually result in lower taxes and an easier path to success for smaller
companies. You could also argue that there are better ways to achieve that
same result rather than said plan.

[1] - [http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/region/wayne_county/governor-
ri...](http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/region/wayne_county/governor-rick-snyder-
signs-bill-giving-broad-new-powers-to-emergency-financial-managers)

~~~
rmason
I'm in Lansing and believe me they are fighting him, turning out thousands
last week and briefly taking over the capital building. They did it with a
phone bank from Washington DC (I received one of the calls as a former MEA
member) and those arrested in the building were all from out of state.

What the proposed law does is give some bargaining strength to the state's
beleagured cities and school boards. Unions are more likely to reach agreement
when there's the threat of the governor appointing an emergency manager. I
think the reality is that the governor won't use that power often. A large
number of the city's in the state face bankruptcy and that's a lot more
unpleasant outcome.

We are faced with some very unpleasant choices in the state. We're in trouble
because previous governors from both parties kicked the can down the road with
paper fixes. The governor is calling for shared sacrifice and those having to
recieve less don't like it one bit.

------
dionidium
This has been a disappointing census for a lot of cities. Nearly everyone in
St. Louis expected the city to post its first population gain since the 1950s,
but the city actually lost nearly 30k people (about 8%).

~~~
mrdodge
I've been reading comments on this and most of them include something like 'we
have all these new downtown condos, I thought we'd see growth from that'. It's
simple math though, a condo with 1 single person is not going to help your
population grow like a single-family-home with 5 people.

~~~
dionidium
You're right, but that's because there was (relatively) _enormous_ growth
downtown (up 359%) [0]. Downtown St. Louis looks nothing like it did 10-15
years ago.

[0] [http://www.stlmag.com/Blogs/SLM-Daily/February-2011/The-
Top-...](http://www.stlmag.com/Blogs/SLM-Daily/February-2011/The-Top-10-St-
Louis-City-Neighborhood-Population-Changes/)

------
cletus
All I can say is "Wow". I knew Detroit was in decline but 25% in 10 years
(excluding the greater area)? That's just _staggering_.

For almost all of human history we've only had to deal with issues of growth.
There are of course exceptions to this. Some cities that were massive are
either small now or have ceased to exist. Some (like London) went through
centuries of virtual depopulation before being reborn (between the Roman
departure and the 10th-11th century).

But modern city depopulation seems to create some fairly big problems. Cities
with significant depopulation (eg Detroit, Baltimore) are known for crime.
Some say this causes the depopulation, which may well be true, but it also
exacerbates it, as drug addicts and the like move into decaying and abandoned
areas.

Going forward, this is going to be a significant problem we'll have to deal
with, I believe. The reason I believe that is that it is my opinion that there
are simply too many people on this planet. Ultimately it's unsustainable.
Either we'll solve this by breeding less or nature will do it for us.

Either way, if this comes to pass, we'll need to figure out how to shrink
urban centers effectively. That's going to be painful.

As for Detroit, it's certainly well off its peak in the 50s and 60s. It may be
cheap (and thus, arguably, attractive to investors) but it's cheap for a
reason. I'm sure Chechnya is cheap too.

~~~
cma
>The reason I believe that is that it is my opinion that there are simply too
many people on this planet. [...] Ultimately it's unsustainable. Either we'll
solve this by breeding less or nature will do it for us.

If by breeding less you mean breeding less than the replacement level so that
we can get to a "sustainable" size, I think you are wrong. Our sun puts out
enough fusion power that, if we could capture a small chunk of it, each of us
could personally use the current energy budge of the entire earth. Ultimately
population growth at some fixed percentage is unsustainable (population growth
at a fixed percentage grows exponentially, our light-cone polynomially), but I
don't think earth's current population is.

