ShareThisWhen Detroit mayoral candidate Stanley Christmas was asked about the city's declining murder rate during an all-candidates meeting a couple of months ago, he replied: "I don't mean to be sarcastic; there just isn't anyone left to kill."
The comment didn't do much for Christmas's campaign -- he finished second to last in the first round of balloting -- but it did typify how many people view the city.
By almost any measure, Detroit is in deep trouble. Unemployment has risen above 20 percent, the city's government is more than $300 million in debt, there are 87,000 vacant homes, and one study recently reported that about 30 percent of the city is now vacant land.
"Detroit has actually been in crisis for years," said Jerry Belanger, a local businessman who has lived and worked in the city for 30 years. "Detroit has just been a burned-out, beat-up city for a long time."
Detroit has gone through downturns before, and some say the current crisis is no worse than the recessions of the early 1990s and 1980s, when unemployment hit similar levels. The city bounced back from those recessions strong enough that by 2000 the unemployment rate was about 3 percent and jobs went begging. But others say this downturn is different and it will change the city forever.
"Everyone realizes this time the auto industry is not going to come back the way it did before," said Doug Rothwell, president of Detroit Renaissance, a non-profit organization made up largely of business executives. "We've got to really change the culture."
Change won't come easy. Automobiles have dominated the economy since Henry Ford opened his first factory in the city in 1903. Within a few decades, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC had their head offices in Detroit, and four out of five cars bought around the world were made in the United States. The auto industry still makes up 20 percent of Detroit's economy, down from about 33 percent 20 years ago.
While few people in Detroit are banking on the auto sector to help revitalize the economy, there are signs of hope.
A $100 million non-profit venture, called the New Economy Initiative, is providing grants to help start dozens of new businesses. Another non-profit group, the Detroit Vacant Property Campaign, is helping revamp abandoned houses,
Home sales are on the rise, jumping 18 percent last month from a year ago as buyers start to snap up bargains.
"A lot of times when you look at all of the different challenges facing Detroit, sometimes you want to give up," said John George, who has lived in the city for 50 years and runs Motor City Blight Busters, a non-profit group that fixes up poor neighborhoods. "Maybe Detroit will never be what it used to be. But maybe we can create something different, something unique and something creative."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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