But keep the comments to yourselves…
For those of you jonesing for both the return of baseball and a little political writing by Connor P, check out this piece over at TPM on Detroit and its Tigers. Money quote:
“Paul Ryan’s aspersions about the “culture” problem of inner city poverty aside, no one sensible would attribute these dispiriting public health numbers to some aberration of American culture. Detroiters aren’t uniquely irresponsible with their lives. They’re just living on desperation’s bleeding edge — in 2010, nearly a quarter of the city was unemployed (in 2012, unemployment was still nearly 20 percent). By no fault of their own, too many Detroiters simply can’t afford to live healthy, dignified lives.
In other words, few of the city’s current residents will be around to collect on the long-term returns of increased immigration and redevelopment of the urban core. Too many of these folks have no foothold in today’s economy; their livelihoods no longer command enough value to sustain dignified lives. They are the human face of free markets’ “creative destruction.”
Conor, Russell, Jamie, Freddie, Elias, Elizabeth, Erik… It always makes my heart sing when I see folks from these pages light up the ‘tubes.
And now the Yankification of the BoSox is complete.Report
get tenure? ha!Report
“Shallow, heavily-stereotyped representations of cities, worded forcefully, is good writin’.”Report
Tod,
Have you read the Cleveland Fed’s Report on Detroit’s irresponsibility (It was doing a comparison of different rustbelt cities)? No, it is not unique. Because of that, we should pay attention.Report
I am sorry, but this statement is simply false, and more than a little sanctimonious to boot. It is shoddy moral intuition and a bad understanding of history and economics masquerading as empathy and social justice.
What happened in Detroit happened because of corporatism and because of poor governance. That ain’t got much to do with free markets. Detroit prospered, in part, thanks to the unholy rent-seeking alliance of Big Corporations, Big Labor, and Big Government and the inability of that triumvirate to react to competition from foreign auto makers is what led to Detroit’s decline. The people locked out of opportunity in Detroit are the victims of a lack of creative destruction. They existed on the margins of a rigged game and when that game folded, they were left with not much.Report
Fed says otherwise. All due respect, but you don’t see the same pattern in Pittsburgh that you do in Cleveland and Detroit.
Geography is Destiny?Report
So, Kim, you’re saying the Fed claims it was the free market that hurt Detroit so bad? Give us the money quote or shut up and go home.
JR’s right, of course, and the problem is that Conor, despite his PhD, which presumably equipped him with some real analytical skills, has fallen into exactly the public opinion writer’s trap that Nate Silver recently criticized.
“Free market” is a convenient trope anytime there’s an economic problem. No actual analysis, no looking under the hood, required. It’s lazy.
I’m not sure I even get Conor’s point, beyond the idea that Detroit’s problem is systemic. Sure, but systemic in what way? You can’t attack a systemic problem until you figure out what systems are involved, and Conor doesn’t dig in and analyze that. It’s easier just to tell a story about suffering and opening day.
If you look at a city with a staggering history of corruption, kick-backs, bribery, embezzlement and general misdirection of public funds, exactly what about all that is free market?Report
James,
“Overall, in growing cities, population density either remained the same or increased in most areas. In contrast, in shrinking cities, formerly high-density city centers saw the biggest drop in density, while the surrounding low-density areas saw an increase population density. In practice, this thinning out of high-density areas of shrinking cities is consistent with population movements out of urban areas and into the surrounding suburbs.”
In practice, Pittsburgh’s housing has remained relatively constrained by geography (as that “pittsburgh robots” article mentioned in last linky friday commented upon). In contrast, Detroit’s housing has been much more free market — which has allowed “tax cheats” to flee into areas that are unsustainable (because they do not handle retirees well at all — mostly due to lack of services, but also due to standard death spiral affects — and the further problem of geographic fragmentation of workforce).Report
Kim,
There’s nothing there that refutes JR’s point. Time for you to STFU. Long past time for that, really.Report
Also, there’s nothing about being constrained by geography or not that makes one place’s housing more free market or less. It just creates different free market effects. It’s hard to imagine the cognitive defects that lead you to think so.Report
James,
JR’s point and Connor’s, both focus on stuff that happened ages ago. In fact, a lot of the people in the lower income bands left, and went to other places.
I’ll make the claim (the fed’s data will mostly back me) that Pittsburgh’s past looks remarkably similar to Detroit’s.
Yet, we don’t have nearly the unemployment (nor infrastructure related problems)Report
“Overall, in growing cities, population density either remained the same or increased in most areas. In contrast, in shrinking cities, formerly high-density city centers saw the biggest drop in density, while the surrounding low-density areas saw an increase population density.”
The Federal Reserve Tautology Subcommittee continues to do fine work.Report
James,
“Also, there’s nothing about being constrained by geography or not that makes one place’s housing more free market or less. It just creates different free market effects. ”
… yeah, you’re right. assertion withdrawn.Report
Another part of Detroit’s problems has been the state reneging on its sales tax agreements with municipalities. Once upon a time municipalities collected their own sales taxes, then the state legislature suggested it’d be more efficient to have a single collector (it is better for merchants) and it would distribute to the cities what they would have received. Then with state budget pressures the state reneged, and used money intended for the cities to prop up its own budget. My town has been nearly devestated by this, but Detroit was in a much weaker position, much less able to absorb the cuts. Democrats and Republicans have been equal parties in this process.
Analyze that however you like as good or bad public policy, but it’s still public policy, not free market.Report
The statement is apropos to the frequent use of the phrase “creative destruction” by some. It is used a positive thing we should want by people who benefit from it and are insulated from the problems that stem from it. People are often hurt in CD. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen in some form, but the problems shouldn’t be dismissed either.Report
Fair enuff Greg but in Detroit’s specific case the assertion that JR makes is not the creative destruction isn’t sometimes destructive but rather that Detroit is a poor example of the costs of creative destruction because the city was devastate primarily by non-market forces; bad governance, corruption and racism to list a few.
If I say that a person dying from arsenic is proof that chemotherapy is a fraud I’m making a leap too far. I’m afraid that Connor’s laying Detroit at the feet of the free market may be a similar leap; though his writing is beautiful and his love for the Team and the city is very evident.Report
If he really loved the city, he’d take it to see a doctor, not a naturopath.Report
North, the problem is that either side of the debate can always point to facts that support its proposition. Liberals will find market and corporate forcers at work and libertarians will find what they don’t like at work.Report
Was Detroit particularly Libertarian/Republican over the last X years? Is the balance about 50/50?
If it turns out that Democrats were in charge more often than not, were they the “those would be Republicans today!” kind of Democrats?Report
Jay,
The people in charge of pittsburgh since the last Jewish mayor were actively financed by the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy.
I guess that counts as “counts as republican/conservative?” It’s certainly not liberal nor progressive.
Don’t know much about Detroit’s richfolk, or I might be able to wade through some filings.Report
Was Detroit particularly Libertarian/Republican over the last X years? Is the balance about 50/50?
About as much as Colorado Springs being particularly left wing over the last X years.Report
Detroit hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1962. Of course, Democrats are capitalists too.Report
The decline in the US auto industry dates to the 70’s and their inability to adapt to changing gas prices and also the foreign auto makers were more agile in adapting tech. Some of that is Creative destruction some of that is other things that lay at the fault of the car companies. As noted above its not like liberals in Detroit or Mich were communists. R’s and D’s are all capitalists with corporatism at their root.Report
@leeesq
But Conor doesn’t provide any evidence for what he claims is the problem. And it’s impossible to look objectively at the history of Detroit and not recognize corporatism, corruption, and racism as primary factors.
I suppose we could link white flight to free markets. After all, we didn’t pass laws limiting white’s legal freedom to buy houses in the suburbs. Of course what’s generally overlooked is the amount of black flight, which is substantial, also.Report
@jm3z-aitch, I think one can very well argue that white flight was a problem of the free market and a societal failure at the same time. Not much you can do about it. There was a lot of suburbanization in the very white cities in the North West though, so white flight isn’t exactly about racism.
I think that for many liberals, corporatism is a free market problem because they associate any sort of business activity with the idea of free markets. Its not exactly true but thats how they see it. Thats why a liberal might see a failure of the free market while libertarians would see corporatism.Report
Greg, yes and if all of the midwests car centric cities and communities were suffering Detroit level ruin I think Connor would be on stronger footing. They are, of course, not- certainly not to the degree that Detroit is. I’m not saying that the “Creative Destruction” of the free market lies blameless in this but I would say that when the cold winds of the market blew against Detroit it was non market forces that had rotted the city out from the inside and left in unable to weather the storm.
JR’s point, that bad governance, corruption, racism and corporatism (that last one is the chicken to all ideologies- libertarians point at it and say statism, liberals point at it and say capitalism etc) are the true killers of Detroit still stands as far as I can see.Report
LeeEsq I’d assert that Racism played a somewhat unique role in Detroit. The city suffered quite a bit of racial animosity that heightened the degree of white flight which did serious damage to the city. Just as importantly cries of racism were very successfully used by a number of highly destructive and corrupt mayors as a deflector shield to keep them in office and the remaining voters bought it hook line and sinker.Report
I have to agree with @leeesq up above. When we talk about something like the history of Detroit, it’s disingenuous to make everything all about the free market or all about the government. It’s clearly a combination of both things (and many others) that drive the success or failure of a modern metropolitan city.Report
North,
I’m pretty sure pittsburgh lost a huge amount of population — it also had some suburbization.
Thing is? Pittsburgh ain’t in Detroit’s situation Right Now. And I think that’s significant.Report
Yes Kimmie, but if the naked creative destruction of the free market was the only or the major factor in Detroits ruin we should see Pittsburg and other car and steel centered metropolis’s mirroring Detroits devastation. That we don’t suggests that Detroit had significant non market factors that contributed to or drove its decline.Report
North,
I think Pittsburgh bottomed out about as hard as Detroit did. (maybe not in central city).
I’m citing data above about Urban sprawl and the reasoning why Pittsburgh has recovered, and Detroit has not.
I don’t think that creative destruction is really the problem here. (in fact, the removal of excessive and expensive infrastructure will probably do Detroit some good). Maybe I ought to have just stated that from the getgo.Report
I think Pittsburgh bottomed out about as hard as Detroit did
Really? When did Pittsburgh declare bankruptcy?Report
Focusing just on population decline, you’re still wrong. Detroit’s gone from 1.8 million (I’ve seen numbers as high as 2.1 million) down to just over 700,000. Over 60% population loss; over 1 million people fewer. Pittsburgh lost about 50%, and a little over 300,000 people.Report
Detroit seems to be benefitting from governmental creative destruction, it seems to me:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/destroying-detroit-city-demolish-10000-homes/story?id=13830479Report