How bad are things in Detroit?

[justin1987]

That's why I was saying to build a huge wall. Set broken glass on the top. Build a 10' wide moat all the way around just inside the wall, with gators swimming in there. Once they clear the top of the wall, they'll be bleeding from the glass & the gators will finish them off.

Just fill the moat with rubbing alcohol and salt. Then after they cut the hell out of themselves on the razor wire they'll have a little surprise waiting for them.

[superduperbee]

In Detroit here, they steal big trucks and drive them through the sides of buildings[including banks] to steal the ATM machines. Also phone lines and AC systems off big buildings. World famous Kronk's boxing gym moved last year after all the copper plumbing was stripped from the building in the middle of the night again.

[Mike DC]

 
I can't believe people actually steal copper tubing off buildings for profits.  It's been going on for years but it still amazes me. 


The profits being divided among several guys + using a big truck and tools + the labor of removing it + hauling it around to scrap it . . . I get the feeling you'd probably end up with more money from a legit $9/hr entry-level job.  And without the jail time risk. 

[superduperbee]

Every month or so some Moron electricutes himself climbing telephone poles to steal the copper wires. Most times they get away though. Someone will complain that their phone is out of service, and when the phone company arrives, discovers the phone lines are missing. It would be less work to go out and get a job.

[Charger_Fan]

 
I can't believe people actually steal copper tubing off buildings for profits.  It's been going on for years but it still amazes me. 


The profits being divided among several guys + using a big truck and tools + the labor of removing it + hauling it around to scrap it . . . I get the feeling you'd probably end up with more money from a legit $9/hr entry-level job.  And without the jail time risk. 

I guess to them, the best thing about swiping copper tubing is that they can still make their own hours.

[BrianShaughnessy]

My sister just sold my uncle's house on Whitcomb.    He had to move to a nursing home after a stroke.
He bought the house in '50 along with my grandmother until she died.  He lived there most of his adult life.
I wouldn't call it the best neighborhood   I'm sure it had it's day at one time.   And the house was never kept up for the last bunch of years as he fell into declining health - physically and mentally.

It sold for under $10K...  I'm told neighbors bought it... most likely for the garage.    Frankly if it was me I'd level the house and keep the extra space.    I don't think it'd be worth it to repair or modernize the house for what it could possibly sell for repaired or not.

It seems to me the prices are so cheap that perhaps the good folks might start going back and starting over if the employment situations could be turned around.   

20 years ago HUD was selling houses in Detroit for $1 on the promise people would fix them up - it's almost the same way now except it's the banks.    Large sections of Detroit are going back to the wild. 

The real shame of it all is that at one time Detroit represented the American dream.   It had the highest rate of single home family ownership in the country.   

[Mike DC]

   
I read a big long far-sighted article about housing & demographic trends in the U.S. one time.  The housing expert they were interviewing was asked about what could be done with the Detriot situation.  He basically said nothing in the foreseeable future would change it. 


He pointed out that everyone takes it for granted that one city can explode in population because of economic growth, and they see nothing troubling or weird about that.  But everyone reacts with disbelief & hand-wringing when another city that has lost its economic anchor begins to shed massive population. 

He basically said we're trying to save Detroit as a reflex, not because there's any real reason to continue to have a large population centered there in the future. 

[4cruzin]

Detroit doesn't have the highest murder rate in the country because we have more crime . . . . . its because were better shots.