There’s a lot to say about these kind of comparisons (do we really want to get people to pit struggling cities against (in some cases) struggling countries?) but the raw numbers are interesting. Even more interesting would be a historical comparison of federal aid to Detroit and other U.S. cities (spoiler alert!). I Here Is…
Tag: detroit
Detroit, bankruptcy, and the national pension fixation
The post I wish I had time to write: how easily people can imagine taking away a retiree’s pension, how small those pensions usually are, and how controversial the assessment of Detroit’s (and everyone else’s) actual pension problem is (for starters, Morningstar says Detroit followed industry practice for its pension plan right up until the…
What the end looks like
The New York Times is stepping up its coverage of Detroit once again, as the city’s emergency manager issues dire warnings to creditors and seems to be paving the way to bankruptcy. There was a flurry of stories about the possibility of the Detroit Institute of Art perhaps being liquidated to help pay off Detroit’s…
Whole Foods opens in Detroit, threatening stereotypes everywhere | Grist
What is the opposite of urban austerity, or the institution that puts a landscape of abandonment and neglect in stark relief…Whole Foods? Recipient of $5.8 million in public money (I guess when you’re about to go bankrupt, what’s a few million?), opening on the same week as the city’s impending bankruptcy starts to take shape….
In Embattled Detroit, No Talk of Sharing Pain – NYTimes.com
Detroit, currently under the governance of an emergency manager, seems destined for bankruptcy or mass default (it has already begun to default on some of its credit payments. Either scenario will be groundbreaking in municipal finance and in the power relationships between bankers, retirees, cities, and states. The impending battle between people living on fixed…