I just read a thread here concerning the downfall of Detroit and propery prices and it reminded me of a doco i just watched on 'journeyman pictures' which is my favourite source of documentaries which i check out every week. Alot of the reports come from Australia, UK, middle east and Africa from investigative journalists and are an endless source of quality information. This one on Detroit was done by an Aussie thats pretty informative on the situation there. Check it out to just get the feel of the type of stuff journeyman puts out fom various sources.


Detroit- aint to proud to beg



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ccnCt_Gww&feature=channel

Just finished watching it.  Pretty good for an outside perspective.  I live in a Northern Suburb of Detroit, but I have customers down there.  It's surreal downtown.  The wife and I just met an Aussie on vacation in Italy.  He had a hard time understanding how very unique South-East Michigan really is.

Think Road Warrior/Mad Max

We are doing pretty well here in Oz because if the world economy is poor we just stop digging, its you guys and China who have to make us stuff


China - "We wont need an iron ore or gas delivery this month"

Australia - "No worries, its still here for you when you get your shit together, im off to the pub ring me after the pool comp"

Detroit has been a shit hole for years.  The same houses that were boarded up in the 1960's and 70's are still till this day.  Corruption is the name of the game.  Just look at the peice of shit Mayor Kwame they just sent to jail. He was under investigation for corruption to allegations of murder.  I swear they are taking poltical lessons from Chicago.  From what I have been told, it's been the same way since my great-great uncle ran booze across the river for the Purple Gang.  I have a few old pictures of him unloading booze from a 30ft Chris Craft. The river looked like it does now.  My Family left Detroit in the 1940's due to this and moved north.  But Flint and Saginaw are turning into the same thing.  Doesn't help either that we have a socialist Canadian for governor either. But, guess who keeps voting her in because of her "social programs".

The state of Michigan is in the process of paroling out between 7,000 and 8,000 convicts this year to ease their budget.  The Michigan Department of Corrections has closed three prisons already and will close three more prisons and five prison camps.  Hundreds of corrections staff are going to be laid off.

I have been telling my friends and family to get ready for a crime tsunami as opposed to just a crime wave.

Flint and Saginaw are basically junior versions of Detroit.

The first couple minutes of the video were very strange; it almost looked like a computer generated city where they didn't add cars or people.

That was the nice part of Detroit. You have to go on Safari to see the parts Detroit is better known for.

 Sorry, but I don't want anything from AUS. Seems like everything down under will kill you. Browns, Death Adders, Salties,  No Thanks. I will keep our rattlers, cottenmouths and Coral snakes. I figured I would fly down to AUS and visit and in the airport I would get a splinter from the handrail and drop over dead. The Aussies would look amused and say, "Mate, didn't ya see that rail is made from the Aussie Death Tree. Gotta watch out next time". Only I would be dead and there would be no next time. No Thanks! WJ

and the drop bears

I left the Detroit suburbs, Westland,  7 years ago, I've been back once, that was enough.  Every year I hear "when you comin to visit?"  and they hear, "I'm not".

I miss a few things about down there.  Food....Brays, Daly's, White Castle, and a good Coney.  There ain't no serious hot rodders here, just a lot of Joe Dirts.  There's no good graffiti, just stupid gang symbols, some of that stuff was incredible. As much as I hate to say it, the gang bangers around Detroit were a much better breed than these white trash wannabes.  There's also a better breed of cop, the state cops here are still elitist pricks, but the county, township and city cops are pretty cool guys just makin a living. It's funny, I can pass any background check with ease but I used to get harassed by the bad-ass city cops all the time.

I left a machining job down there making 17 dollars an hour, living in a nice neighborhood for a 7 dollar an hour job at a quick lube and lived in an old mobile home. Never a regret.

I had a buddy, he and his wife worked at the same ford plant, bought themselves a nice $200,000 cubical in the burbs and commenced to pay their $2300 note on it, then they closed the plant.  I say had a buddy, because he talked down to me for a couple years about my minimum wage job  and my ratty mobile home.  A 30 year long childhood friendship ended because of the big city attitude.  Don't know what he's doing now, but I can still live on minimum wage.

Where auto manufacturing may be slow, I still talk to my machining buddies and they're hoppin.  Most of the mid-sized shops have always done military stuff as their bread and butter, and now it's even better.  One place was actually approached by FN to do some stuff and they do all the Trijicon sights.  There's also a lot of prototype stuff for the new cars that they ain't building yet.

Some people are doing good, others aren't.  They siad there's a lot more homeless walking around in the burbs now, and break-ins are getting more common.  One guy said it was nice to see some people moving away.  

Looking back, it wasn't a nice place to live, but it was an interesting place to live, you could always find something new and exciting to do.  I enjoyed my childhood there, I left at 27.

I'm happy to be raising my family somewhere else, far from Detroit.

I watched the video and have a few observations.

An okay peice, but it has some typical media frosting.

First, it shouldn't be about "Detroit"  It should have been about "Metro-Detroit". The real fallout from the big 3 is felt out in the burbs.

To show a decaying Detroit city and speak of the decline of the big 3 isn't really accurate.  Detroit itself is mostly office buildings and government.  There were a few plants in the city, but most weren't. The plants I know of were in Wayne, Dearborn, Livonia, Belleville, and Ypsilanti;  5 to 30 miles in every direction outside Detroit.  Hundreds of plants with thousands upon thousands of workers.  Even the supplier's plants weren't in "Detroit".  Most of the people that worked for the car companies only went to Detroit for jury duty, to stand in front of a judge, or go to jail.

The shots of Detroit city show it looking pretty much like it did when I was a kid.  It's looked like that for a very long time.  People and businesses left long ago and never went back.

Maybe there's a bit less traffic there now, but it was usually light. You park and walk most everyplace.  The larger complexes have their own parking and you only see the cars during rush hour.

Those deserted shots would be easy to get on a Sunday morning since nobody really lives there and all the offices are closed.

Most of those deserted factories, buildings and houses shown have been deserted or burned for years, some since the 67 riots.

The RenCen is GM headquarters, but the tower with the GM sign is the Westin hotel.  I always thought it was kinda funny when the camera zoomed in on the top of that tower and it's a restaurant up there.

The train station they show has been abandoned since 1988 I think.  Its a shame, it's a neat old building.  It has nothing to do with anything recent, people stopped riding the train a long time ago.