Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 182 posts

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#121

Post by alexbeloi »

TomMckenny wrote: post #117
mbesto wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pay attention to how much you spend next time you call a plumber. Anecdotal, but the average quote I got for electricians in the bay area was $200/hour. This is also consistent for electricians in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago (just had a friend recently get work done at that price). I recently paid $2k to get a transmission done, of which $1700 was labor alone (took 3 days). Point is - these trades are no joke wh…

Where did that $2k come from? While it's nice there is some way to redistribute wealth in this way, unfortunately service sector jobs don't create wealth: you can not have a city solely of repairmen and realtors. Less skilled factory work would generate wealth, but unfortunately those are the exact jobs that left.

>service sector jobs don't create wealth: you can not have a city solely of repairmen and realtors.

Repairmen very directly create wealth by adding value to the thing they repair, equivalent to a craft trade or construction. Realtors create wealth indirectly by increasing/facilitating trade, trade creates wealth.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#122

Post by karpodiem »

trisimix wrote: post #12

Hi I'm from Detroit, I love seeing my city talked about. A lot of people are claiming decline of residents as a lack of proof of revival. Heres a counterpoint: https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2017/07/10/detro... Detroit is spectacular for many reasons. We have retained and nurtured our resources from before the decline such as our art museum, libraries and ISPs (not the consumer ones). In the midst of our…

Hi there, fellow Detroiter here.

I would certainly say there is definite momentum in Detroit but I'd like to see additional angel funding / 1MM+ Series A rounds before I would use the word 'exploding' to describe the tech scene.

Second - there are some very interesting software problems that the Tier 1 suppliers (Delphi/Magna/AAM/etc.) are working on but you never hear about it. Generally working for a tier 1 supplier sucks (suppliers are always subservient to the OEMs) but you there's nothing quite like getting your hands dirty in bringing together the real world and code.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#123

Post by 8bitsrule »

dizzystar wrote: post #22

Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Toledo, and so on got absolutely destroyed after all the mills were shut down. The bar for reviving is incredibly low. Those that could leave, left. The very people that could quicken the recovery of the fallen Midwestern towns are the same people who left. Detroit has UM, Cleveland has Case Western, Pittsburgh has Carnegie Mellon which are all top-flight schools. In a strange way, the…

"ripping out the soul along the way"

Sad. Equally sad is: that's also happening in cities that are enjoying The Best of Times. A lot of the people doing the actual work can't afford to live in them ... even if their neighborhoods weren't being gentrified into sterility.

Property investors want a high return on their rentals. But no spreadsheets can calculate the hidden cost of that return. When there's nothing left for greed to monetize, the day of reckoning will arrive.

It'll probably look like 'I Am Legend'.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#124

Post by breischl »

ajross wrote: post #114
SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nowadays, "working-class, blue-collar" stuff does not make money, and if "working-class, blue-collar" people identify with the economic system which designates their labor as a cost to be repressed rather than a service to be rewarded, I'm not sure how much I can do about that. Maybe by pointing to blue collar work that still pays well. A buddy of mine is an auto mechanic and is the sole income earner for his family…

> A buddy of mine [...] is an auto mechanic [...another...] is a pipe fitter for gas pipelines [...] next time you call a plumber. Noted without comment that these are all predominantly white, male occupations. Would you say the same thing about dish washing, fruit picking, house cleaning or school teaching? Does that alter your thinking about whether or not "trades" make money? Does it make you want to argue about w…

Most of the examples you provided (specifically dish washing, fruit picking, house cleaning) are not traditionally considered "blue collar" or "the trades." Rather they are considered unskilled labor. So your comment doesn't really respond to the GP's comments about the trades. I suspect that relatively few would argue that unskilled labor is a great way to support a family. I also suspect that conflating unskilled labor with the trades and then using that to claim that the GP's comment was essentially racist is the likely source of the downvotes you've gotten.

Note I excluded school teaching from my earlier comments. TBH I'm not sure what category that falls under, but I'm relatively certain it's not unskilled labor.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#125

Post by Thriptic »

microtherion wrote: post #103
trop wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their location on the water Which I misread as "the location of their water". Which is actually quite serious. See https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/in-dayton-ohio-an-econo... > As states like California face major water shortages, city officials in Dayton sense a business opportunity. ... the self-filtering, self-recharging freshwater supply, along with the rivers, once made Dayton attractive to water-intensive…

Ohio is particularly useful as a source of flammable water…

"Come see our river which catches on fire. It's so polluted that all our fish have AIDS."

For those unfamiliar, the Cuyahoga river which flows through Ohio was so polluted at various points that it caught on fire 10+ times. The fires were one of the catalysts for the environmental movement.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#126

Post by randcraw »

Bartweiss wrote: post #19
rayiner wrote: post #6

Weird that the article does not cite a single economic or demographic indicator to support its assertion. For example, Detroit's population has declined so far this decade at about the same pace as it declined from 1990-2000 (though not at the disastrous pace it declined from 2000-2010, when the city lost a quarter of its population). Sounds like far from a revival.

This is a pretty weird article, without some kind of further support it really smacks of a manufactured narrative. As you say, the population - which the article insists is the key factor - shows no sign of recovering. It's simply ceased the plummet it was in during the economic crisis and preceding years. The rate of decline might be a bit slower than the 90s, but the second derivative is still 0. (If you made me of…

I suspect this is an 'archive' article -- a lightweight piece that's whipped up at a moment's notice or lay about idly until a slow news day comes along and something with snappy pictures is needed to fill a void. This news contains little that's especially new.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#127

Post by todd8 »

jacquesm wrote: post #28
hpcjoe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mario's[1] for excellent Italian food. Xoxhimilco[2] for excellent Mexican food. Antonio's[3] in the burbs. New Peking[4] in GC for excellent Chinese food. I've lived in Michigan 30 years now. Came here for grad school, first at MSU, then down to Wayne State for Ph.D. Never left. There is something about this place. Even when we are getting the crap kicked out of us ... we don't give up. It took a long time to get ri…

> Private and charter schooling is doing a great job of fixing that, giving parents a choice Free private schools? If not they are giving parents that can afford it a choice. Just like wealthy expats tend to place their kids in good private schools in poor places because they can afford it. As long as education isn't good for everybody it's just another way to stack the deck.

I’m not sure what you’re proposing. I grew up in Detroit and went to public schools; I learned nothing in junior high or high school there. What could my parents have done differently? I feel that we should have moved, but my parents were committed to a higher goal and we stayed.

My brother and I had rough lives there, assaults, hate crime, etc. I made sure to settle in a better place now that I have a family.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#128

Post by randcraw »

dyeje wrote: post #31

Surprised by all the skepticism in this thread. As someone who grew up in Metro Detroit, moved away, and came back it is very obvious that Detroit is on the rebound. I'm not sure what metrics show it, but it's real.

But the rebound is very uneven and not yet walkable. Unlike other rust belt urban centers like Pittsburgh which is walkable (especially near the universities), Detroit's layout was shaped heavily by the priorities of the automobile, which famously have impeded pedestrian friendly ecosystems everywhere.

Until Detroit can carve out car-free zones that attract hip daytime hangouts that combine residential with retail, its urban costs will continue to outweigh its urban charm.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#129

Post by leereeves »

TomMckenny wrote: post #117
mbesto wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pay attention to how much you spend next time you call a plumber. Anecdotal, but the average quote I got for electricians in the bay area was $200/hour. This is also consistent for electricians in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago (just had a friend recently get work done at that price). I recently paid $2k to get a transmission done, of which $1700 was labor alone (took 3 days). Point is - these trades are no joke wh…

Where did that $2k come from? While it's nice there is some way to redistribute wealth in this way, unfortunately service sector jobs don't create wealth: you can not have a city solely of repairmen and realtors. Less skilled factory work would generate wealth, but unfortunately those are the exact jobs that left.

What is "wealth"?

If car built in a factory is useful for 10 years without repairs, but useful for 30 years with repairs, the mechanics add 20 years of useful life to the car. Does that not increase wealth?

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#130

Post by ajross »

breischl wrote: post #124
ajross wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A buddy of mine [...] is an auto mechanic [...another...] is a pipe fitter for gas pipelines [...] next time you call a plumber. Noted without comment that these are all predominantly white, male occupations. Would you say the same thing about dish washing, fruit picking, house cleaning or school teaching? Does that alter your thinking about whether or not "trades" make money? Does it make you want to argue about w…

Most of the examples you provided (specifically dish washing, fruit picking, house cleaning) are not traditionally considered "blue collar" or "the trades." Rather they are considered unskilled labor. So your comment doesn't really respond to the GP's comments about the trades. I suspect that relatively few would argue that unskilled labor is a great way to support a family. I also suspect that conflating unskilled l…

> I suspect that relatively few would argue that unskilled labor is a great way to support a family.

So... how do workers in these jobs-that-apparently-don't-qualify-as-trades support their families?

We have the economy we have. Someone has to do these jobs. You can't wave a magic wand and insist that everything would be fine as long as everyone is a plumber. Someone has to pick the fruit and teach the kids. People who do that can't support families. That's a problem, right?

The solution isn't plumbing, is all I'm saying.

Post reply on HN