Move Detroit • Hacker News Board

Re: Move Detroit

#81

Post by dyauspitr » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 5:03 AM UTC

stinkbeetle wrote: post #72

marcus_holmes wrote: post #54

As an non-American, looking from the outside, I find Detroit's saga incredibly sad and a little strange. When I was a kid, Detroit was a symbol of US industry and engineering. All those huge muscle cars. That kind of Mad Max Road Warrior attitude (yeah, I know that's Aussie, but that same attitude). Now it's a symbol of US decline, I think. It's strange to me that the USA let this happen, or that it didn't have the p…

I don't think it would offend, Americans are the first to bemoan what happened to Detroit as far as I have seen. What will probably offend more is the fact that the USA is not really in decline, as much as that has long been the highbrow narrative. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... It has lost ground in some industries, it h…

> they would all starve to death in the dark, surrounded by vast fields of food and energy.

What does this mean? That Australia is self-sufficient in food and energy but exports all of it or does it mean Australia is incapable of processing the raw materials into finished goods?

Re: Move Detroit

#82

Post by decimalenough » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 5:12 AM UTC

stinkbeetle wrote: post #72

marcus_holmes wrote: post #54

As an non-American, looking from the outside, I find Detroit's saga incredibly sad and a little strange. When I was a kid, Detroit was a symbol of US industry and engineering. All those huge muscle cars. That kind of Mad Max Road Warrior attitude (yeah, I know that's Aussie, but that same attitude). Now it's a symbol of US decline, I think. It's strange to me that the USA let this happen, or that it didn't have the p…

I don't think it would offend, Americans are the first to bemoan what happened to Detroit as far as I have seen. What will probably offend more is the fact that the USA is not really in decline, as much as that has long been the highbrow narrative. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... It has lost ground in some industries, it h…

While I agree with your overall assessment of the Australia economy...

> But when it runs out or stops being bought, are we going to be any better off than the Saudi post-oil?

"It" is not going to run out in the foreseeable future. Australia is unimaginably huge and has deposits of pretty much everything somewhere. The state of Western Australia alone has 29% of the world's known iron ore, more than any other entire country (Brazil is #2 with 19%) and more than Russia and China combined.

Re: Move Detroit

#83

Post by marcus_holmes » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 5:26 AM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #82

stinkbeetle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would offend, Americans are the first to bemoan what happened to Detroit as far as I have seen. What will probably offend more is the fact that the USA is not really in decline, as much as that has long been the highbrow narrative. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... It has lost ground in some industries, it h…

While I agree with your overall assessment of the Australia economy... > But when it runs out or stops being bought, are we going to be any better off than the Saudi post-oil? "It" is not going to run out in the foreseeable future. Australia is unimaginably huge and has deposits of pretty much everything somewhere. The state of Western Australia alone has 29% of the world's known iron ore, more than any other entire…

Yeah but when they automate all the mining jobs away and the existing policy of bribing our politicians to not tax them gets to its logical conclusion, what's the point? We're just throwing away irreplaceable natural resources.

Re: Move Detroit

#84

Post by cal_dent » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 5:29 AM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #71

cal_dent wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK did do that to large swathes of Northern England. Changing times comes for everyone in the end

Agreed, and I'm sure at one time the UK was seen as an industrial and mining powerhouse and people raised with that image would be sad at the change. But by the time Thatcher trashed the North that wasn't really true any more. I don't think the UK went from an industrial giant to a desolate wasteland in a single generation like Detroit did. I could be wrong, though.

Yeah that's fair point. The closest from that perspective would be the collapse of shipbuilding in places like Sunderland or Hull or maybe textile mills in burnley. But not as significant in terms of global cultural importance i guess

Re: Move Detroit

#85

Post by marcus_holmes » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 5:32 AM UTC

dyauspitr wrote: post #81

stinkbeetle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would offend, Americans are the first to bemoan what happened to Detroit as far as I have seen. What will probably offend more is the fact that the USA is not really in decline, as much as that has long been the highbrow narrative. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... It has lost ground in some industries, it h…

> they would all starve to death in the dark, surrounded by vast fields of food and energy. What does this mean? That Australia is self-sufficient in food and energy but exports all of it or does it mean Australia is incapable of processing the raw materials into finished goods?

yeah, basically. We export iron ore and import cars. If the global trade system shut down we'd be sat on a huge pile of ore with absolutely no way of turning it into anything useful.

It's similar with food: our Wheatbelt produces vast amounts of wheat. Which is great but kinda useless without global trade; we can't turn all that wheat into actual food ourselves.

Re: Move Detroit

#86

Post by stinkbeetle » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 5:51 AM UTC

dyauspitr wrote: post #81

stinkbeetle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would offend, Americans are the first to bemoan what happened to Detroit as far as I have seen. What will probably offend more is the fact that the USA is not really in decline, as much as that has long been the highbrow narrative. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... It has lost ground in some industries, it h…

> they would all starve to death in the dark, surrounded by vast fields of food and energy. What does this mean? That Australia is self-sufficient in food and energy but exports all of it or does it mean Australia is incapable of processing the raw materials into finished goods?

Australia does not have the ability to manufacture enough fuel or fertilizer to feed or harvest or transport its crops and livestock or dig minerals and fossil fuels out of the ground. Is also incapable of making any of the machinery to do any of those things either. All of it has to come on boats.

Australia ships thermal and coking coal and iron ore and bauxite and uranium and lithium to China, Japan, Korea, and buys cars and steel and batteries and machinery back from them. It's not high-tech, smart, forward looking. It extremely extremely lucky (cursed by its luck, really) to have the natural non-renewable resources that it does, and it is hell-bent on squandering them all as fast as possible and having nothing to show for it by the end of it.

Re: Move Detroit

#87

Post by stinkbeetle » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 5:56 AM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #82

stinkbeetle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would offend, Americans are the first to bemoan what happened to Detroit as far as I have seen. What will probably offend more is the fact that the USA is not really in decline, as much as that has long been the highbrow narrative. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... It has lost ground in some industries, it h…

While I agree with your overall assessment of the Australia economy... > But when it runs out or stops being bought, are we going to be any better off than the Saudi post-oil? "It" is not going to run out in the foreseeable future. Australia is unimaginably huge and has deposits of pretty much everything somewhere. The state of Western Australia alone has 29% of the world's known iron ore, more than any other entire…

It really isn't hard to "foresee" 50-100 years into the future, and that's when iron ore could run out. Could even be sooner if production increases significantly.

Re: Move Detroit

#88

Post by ninkendo » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 11:47 AM UTC

bpt3 wrote: post #53

ninkendo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Detroit is not as strong as any of these cities or metro areas with regard to higher education That wasn’t your first claim, you’ve moved the goalposts. You claimed Detroit has “limited access to higher education”. I never meant to imply Detroit is as good as Boston or SF or the other cities you mentioned, only to point out how ridiculous it is to claim that Detroit doesn’t have some very high quality universities…

I'm not moving the goalposts. I said Detroit has limited access to higher education. I said that because schools like Wayne State, Detroit Mercy, etc. are not noteworthy and the closest "good" school (UM) is 45 miles away. None of those facts have changed. You're the one trying to poke random holes in my claim in what appears to be an attempt to defend Detroit (there are none, because it's based in the objective fact…

Your argument started with “limited access to education” and is now “yeah but the only good school is UM”. If your standards are “must be more than one top-25-in-the-world university in commuting distance”, then like, maybe 2-3 cities in the US qualify for this. Nobody’s saying Detroit is in the top 5 cities in the US for higher education. But there (1) is a world class university 45 minutes away and (2) many many “pretty darn good” universities nearby as well. Even though you consider them “not noteworthy”. Detroit punches above its weight for higher education when looking at similar sized cities.

Re: Move Detroit

#89

Post by mplanchard » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 12:02 PM UTC

saghm wrote: post #2

Based on the domain, I expected this to be about literally moving Detroit somehow, either figuratively by relocating things or literally by physically moving the land (like Marble Hill but at a much larger scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Hill,_Manhattan )

Was thinking it might be about the people mover! https://www.thepeoplemover.com/

Re: Move Detroit

#90

Post by segmondy » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC

If you are young, you definitely should consider Detroit.

4.5 hrs drive to Toronto, 4.5 hrs to Chicago, 3 hrs to Columbus and Cleveland. 45 minutes to Ann Arbor. Growing up in Detroit, I partied hard in these locations with my friend. Friday if we were not local, we would head out to one of these cities and go party. If you are into water, lots of lakes, local beaches, if you are into hiking, lots of trails. Wanna ski? Got it. Foodie? Unbelievable great spots, tons of ethnic food. Get to know people and discover those hole in the wall joints that are amazing. The only reason not to stay in the Detroit area is if you can't find a job, but if you can get a job and work remote? Worth it.