While I was away there were so many things happening in the world that I could barely catch up with everything after having gone on holidays.
I quickly got back into the swing of things, however, and looked into a couple of stories that had been mentioned to me throughout my time off, though I hadn't had a chance to read about them. One of these includes the struggles happening in Detroit.
Historically Detroit was a well off city. It was founded in 1701 as a fur trading post for New France and slowly evolved into the largest city in Michigan.
They were a hub of trading and were big into manufacturing. When most people think of Detroit, the picture in their mind always contains something to do with car factories.
Henry Ford's assembly line was born there and the automotive industry thrived throughout the years. Detroit was the home of manufacturing in the United States. This included manufacturing all of the parts and assembling them.
When World War II struck the world Detroit stopped commercial production and stepped up to construct jeeps, tanks, and bombers. In fact the Guardian Building was transformed into wartime headquarters for production.
Following the war Detroit continued to prosper and thrived as demand for personal motor vehicles grew. Between 1945 and 1970 they were the most prosperous as they had ever been. However, as the world grew smaller and cheaper labour could be found elsewhere, Detroit began struggling to survive. It was no longer the manufacturing magnate the world had come to know and began slipping into trouble.
Manufacturing could be done elsewhere cutting down on the jobs, which used to be primarily located in and around Detroit. As people lost their jobs, what were they to do but move or search for other work, which wasn't to be found in Detroit. The major problem being that Detroit was unable to diversify its economy and relied too heavily on the automotive sector therefore when outsourcing became popular the economy began to falter.
The city of Detroit stumbled and was never able to stop its imminent fall. Having declared bankruptcy recently, while people are struggling to survive in a city, which is ultimately offering nothing. There are reportedly 78,000 vacant structures with nearly half to be considered dangerous according to the National Post.
Despite being a large economic force, Detroit began a decline in the 1960s which has contributed to the fall of the city. Ultimately as globalization took hold the city began to flounder and the exodus of people left a city of poor impoverished people unable to leave in an abundance of abandoned buildings, making for a setting prime for crime.
One of the things mentioned to me was the reiteration of how poor the city is. What this person brought up to me was the idea that if a fire breaks out, the firefighters are apparently told to ensure no one was in danger but to simply let the building burn because they do not have the funds to save infrastructure.
Though there is no one specific event that is to blame for Detroit's downfall it is interesting to see how a city, which was once thriving and strong, becomes something that is nearly impossible to save.
The fall of Detroit however does show the concerns with globalization and capitalism in today's economy and hopefully provide lessons to other cities to avoid such a downfall.
