Detroit's population crashes down 25% from 2000

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704461304576216850733151470.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

by jprobert • 15 years ago

29 27 15 years ago

online.wsj.com

jprobert• 15 years ago

Being from Detroit this brings a tear to my eye but it presents opportunity for many people to establish new companies very cheaply.

noodle2• 15 years ago

it seems to me that the issue now becomes talent. a lot of talent has left, and the money you save in starting a company will probably need to be spent in getting talent to detroit.

rmason2• 15 years ago

That's where you're wrong. Population of the greater Detroit metropolitan area is 5.4 million and people forget that when they talk about what's happening in the city of Detroit.

The talent is there and there's a large number of people who have left and would return in a heartbeat if the jobs were there.

Michigan's new governor is a former VC and the state is staking their future on startups and entrepreneurs. He's trying to lower taxes, smaller companies will pay zero taxes under his plan.

However Michigan's unions are fighting him tooth and nail even though he is not challenging their power directly like the governors in Wisconsin and Ohio. So despite the voters giving him a majority in both legislatures he may not achieve everything he wants. What there won't be are the huge government handouts to favored companies that the previous governor was fond of using.

adlep• 15 years ago

The biggest problem in doing business in D. is an ever-present Mr. 15% mentality. You won't be able to do much without either: 1. Having friends with connections in the "government" of Detroit or 2. Paying off so that they will get off your back.

I live in Ferndale, but I have an idea that is very suitable for Detroi - but I won't pursue it until there are some more changes happening in the city council.

durbin2• 15 years ago

Getting talent to the region isn't really that much of an issue, its keeping it. There are tons of Univeristy of Michigan grads in the bay area that have started amazingly successful companies, most notably Larry Page. There will always be a strong flow of talent from U of M, its just a matter of convincing some of them to stay in the area.

iwwr• 15 years ago

What are taxes and regulations like? It may not be possible to run companies cheaply, part for the rent.

evo_9• 15 years ago

I'm also from Detroit and this is really tough to read about.

Detroit does have a great opportunity in all this though - there are a lot of talented people still living in and around the city. It would seem like the ideal location for some truly innovative automotive advancements and with the push for more green and eco-friendly cars, I'm surprised there aren't a few startup communities designed to engage this currently dormant group of potential hackers.

klous• 15 years ago

There are a few startup and hacker communities in Detroit, namely DNewTech, i3Detroit, OmniCorpDetroit. DNewTech meets monthly, with a keynote speaker and showcases 5 startups.

jeffepp• 15 years ago

Check out http://fundedbynight.com. There are a lot of passionate people working on building a startup community in Metro Detroit.

Anyone interested should email me.

skullsplitter• 15 years ago

Yes, OCD is doing really rad things! I encourage others to check them out, http://omnicorpdetroit.com/blog/

If/when I move back to the D Ill be joining OCD asap

cletus• 15 years ago

All I can say is "Wow". I knew Detroit was in decline but 25% in 10 years (excluding the greater area)? That's just staggering.

For almost all of human history we've only had to deal with issues of growth. There are of course exceptions to this. Some cities that were massive are either small now or have ceased to exist. Some (like London) went through centuries of virtual depopulation before being reborn (between the Roman departure and the 10th-11th century).

But modern city depopulation seems to create some fairly big problems. Cities with significant depopulation (eg Detroit, Baltimore) are known for crime. Some say this causes the depopulation, which may well be true, but it also exacerbates it, as drug addicts and the like move into decaying and abandoned areas.

Going forward, this is going to be a significant problem we'll have to deal with, I believe. The reason I believe that is that it is my opinion that there are simply too many people on this planet. Ultimately it's unsustainable. Either we'll solve this by breeding less or nature will do it for us.

Either way, if this comes to pass, we'll need to figure out how to shrink urban centers effectively. That's going to be painful.

As for Detroit, it's certainly well off its peak in the 50s and 60s. It may be cheap (and thus, arguably, attractive to investors) but it's cheap for a reason. I'm sure Chechnya is cheap too.

cma• 15 years ago

>The reason I believe that is that it is my opinion that there are simply too many people on this planet. [...] Ultimately it's unsustainable. Either we'll solve this by breeding less or nature will do it for us.

If by breeding less you mean breeding less than the replacement level so that we can get to a "sustainable" size, I think you are wrong. Our sun puts out enough fusion power that, if we could capture a small chunk of it, each of us could personally use the current energy budge of the entire earth. Ultimately population growth at some fixed percentage is unsustainable (population growth at a fixed percentage grows exponentially, our light-cone polynomially), but I don't think earth's current population is.

dionidium2• 15 years ago

This has been a disappointing census for a lot of cities. Nearly everyone in St. Louis expected the city to post its first population gain since the 1950s, but the city actually lost nearly 30k people (about 8%).

mrdodge• 15 years ago

I've been reading comments on this and most of them include something like 'we have all these new downtown condos, I thought we'd see growth from that'. It's simple math though, a condo with 1 single person is not going to help your population grow like a single-family-home with 5 people.

dionidium2• 15 years ago

You're right, but that's because there was (relatively) enormous growth downtown (up 359%) [0]. Downtown St. Louis looks nothing like it did 10-15 years ago.

[0] http://www.stlmag.com/Blogs/SLM-Daily/February-2011/The-Top-...

justinph• 15 years ago

This is disappointing news, but I still have a lot of hope for Detroit. The desert southwest is running out of fresh water due to climate change and over-use. Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, even Atlanta, they're all unsustainable. If they're unsustainable, eventually they have to stop.

Detroit, and other cities in the rust belt, generally have plentiful fresh water, not to mention natural infrastructure waiting to be re-used (harbors, rivers, etc). If I was making a 100 year bet, I wouldn't bet on Vegas, I'd bet on Detroit.

solson2• 15 years ago

I agree. In the long run Detroit has potential. But before they can make any economic strides they need to fix their bloated corrupt city government.

If you want to make a real 100 year bet on Detroit, buy some real estate now, it has never been cheaper. In some places you could buy an entire city block for a few grand. You could will it to your grandchildren. I've considered it, but haven't convinced my wife... yet.

radu_floricica• 15 years ago

It's city, not agricultural terrain. There's a good chance sometime in the next 20 years the city authorities will force you to invest in it. Maybe even immediately.

gamble• 15 years ago

Problem is that while the real estate is cheap, the taxes are not. There's also the potential liability of owning land you have no ability to monitor and maintain.

cheez• 15 years ago

Rockefeller didn't listen to his wife :)

yummyfajitas• 15 years ago

Why is it disappointing? 237,000 people left a terrible region with few prospects in search of something better. Most likely they are better off where they are now.

If Detroit dies, but the people living formerly living inside it are better off, isn't that a good thing?

durbin2• 15 years ago

it is disappointing news, maybe if people quit calling it the rust belt that we be a nice place to start.

KevinEldon• 15 years ago

"Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, even Atlanta, they're all unsustainable." What? Where did you get this information? I live it Atlanta and although we did have a drought a couple years ago, we've also had record rainfalls since then. Water issues in these cities can be rectified by increasing the price of water. As the price of water increases the excess use of water drops off (pools, yards, etc.) and the opportunity to innovate in water delivery and reclamation increases.

Detroit's population crashes down 25% from 2000

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