Detroit Is The New Conservative Wet Dream

Detroit is the new Conservative wet dream. You’ll find plenty of finger-pointing for Detroit’s woes, but they all boil down to blaming the victim. In other words: Detroiters are responsible for all their own troubles. Fox “News” blames greedy union contracts for Detroit’s march into bankruptcy, while Bill O’Reilly insists all of Detroit’s problems can be laid at the feet of drug dealers and users. Other bloviators cite decades of evil, liberal rule, because Detroit mayors have been progressive since 1962.

Others blame the complete erosion of the manufacturing base. Or, if you’d prefer, “To See Detroit’s Decline, Look at 40 Years Of Federal Policy.” Then there’s bad investments by pension trustees. Maya Wiley at The Grio agrees with me: I blame Detroit’s problems on decades of systemic racism. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the conspiracy theorists who breathlessly insist that nothing has ever been the same—for both the city and the music label—since Motown hightailed it to Los Angeles.

Regardless of your favorite strawman, there’s no denying that Detroit presents a challenge and opportunity for gentrification on a scale never before seen in ‘Merka.

To be clear: gentrification eventually comes to every blighted neighborhood. As areas degrade, the prices fall. As real estate becomes cheap, a few intrepid souls venture in and start fixing up some houses. However, gentrification has never been seen on a scale like what is happening in Detroit.

Deborah Foster, in her article “Detroit Sinks Deeper Into Hell As It Faces Right Wing Utopian Fantasies,” writes:

The commonalities between what is happening to Sears and what is happening to Detroit are that both are now being subjected to right wing ideology, Ayn Rand philosophy, and von Hayek’s austerity economics. The results for each are similar. People will unnecessarily suffer. Damage will eventually need to be undone. And people will have to learn the hard way what a failure these poisonous schools of thought really are.