Detroit: A Dying City

Whoppi Dam Doo

 

Invest in Detroit and it's "You-owe-me, can't-do attitude." Bwah-hahahahahahahaha.

 

A buddy of mine began living in his late Uncle's Detroit home about a month ago. The place was paid off so all he had to pay for was utilities and taxes (basically nothing). He was robbed twice in a week.

Another family friend who lives on the east side, and refuses to move, was talking to some new neighbors who were doing some handy work around the home. The friend went to dinner, came back and the handy work was done. The people who said they were neighbors were just looters. They stole the front and back doors in broad daylight.

That's why people don't want to live in Detroit.

 

I read that Time project. It looks very good.

But it made me think. What if Detroit is the first American city to return to its roots? And by that, I mean Detroit shrinks and all the outlying areas return to farmland.

Every city, for the most part, has increased outward over the past century or more. But seeing all these pictures of areas such as Brush Park and other neighborhoods essentially be large grassy fields makes me wonder if perhaps this could be a new agricultural center. The city has always been known as innovative in terms of the car ... I wonder if that's how it could re-invent itself by downsizing.

 

And watching that CBC report, I cannot believe that houses can go for $500. Where I live, in Connecticut, that might - emphasis on might - get you a tool shed.

 

My grandmother lived in Detroit. We'd visit her usually every weekend when I was a kid. This was about 30 years ago.


Anyway, I recently drove past that old neighborhood just to see what it looked like now. More than half the street were vacant lots.

 

Speaking of urban prairies, here's a site that compares two areas of the city. I think it's been posted before as well, but still interesting.

One in the 1960s and then 2003.

Another in 1949 and 2003.

http://paradisevalleyllc.com/content/246

 

You think that's bad. Someone stole my salad out of the fridge here and with it (worst of all), my Tupperware!

 

Buying property with a home on it probably isn't worth the headache.

However, buying land that no longer has a home on it might be worth the investment. You could probably buy up a significant amount of land for pennies on the dollar and sit on it until you get a good price for it.

 

A co-worker of mine at a suburban paper lives in Detroit. Her husband grew up in Detroit, went to public schools in the city and teaches at a public high school in the city.

They send their sons to a charter school in the suburbs. She said she would sell her house and move to the suburbs in a heartbeat if the housing market weren't in the toilet.

 

It would cost too much money to guard the corn crop.

 

The median home sale price in Detroit is less than $6,000. That's just mind-blowing.