Saw a documentary about Detroit - WTF
 

OK... since I didn't live in a cave for the last 6 years, I do know that the city took a beating economically in the aftermath of the crisis.
I did know that a lot of people lost their jobs / home and had to re-locate and that some areas were pretty much left to waste.

However, the documentary showed crazy things that I still have a hard time to believe:
- Some tree huggers couple who bout a house with a pretty big back yard for $1,500
- Several areas with no traffic lights to save $$$
- Places with minimum (and I really mean bare minimum) police and fire departments
- A parallel economy.
- Tours for - the rare tourists - to go around deserted industrial buildings.

The documentary went on for over an hour, showing desolation and things you would expect to see in a third world country (or Russia :winkwink:).

Anyone been there recently (or is there currently)?
Is it as bad as they said or is it just to make sensational TV?

yes and no. The city is large, there are areas that are built up really nice and areas that look brutal. people focus on the brutal of course. It's obviously not great there but I never feel that i'm in a third world when I'm there. Some areas are like partial ghost towns is all. Far more people living in the suburbs instead.

I go to Detroit a few times a month. It is in bad shape, the roads/highways especially, it gets better the further out of the City you go but the highways leading in/out of downtown are quite bad.

There are a lot of pros about Detroit. Some great food places all over, I love going for dinner with my wife. Good sports teams mostly, Lions and Tigers have been junk this year but usually they are good teams. Red Wings are strong as always.

There is some good shopping malls in Detroit which my wife likes to visit. Usually there are good concerts if you wanna go check out some bands. There are Theatres. Really it has everything. As Glen said, most negative stuff focuses on negative areas but Detroit and the Detroit metro area still has a lot of wealth to it. Head to Troy which is 15 minutes from downtown and you'll see a whole new world.

Ok, confirms my thoughts... it must have been sensational TV...

http://i.imgur.com/JdEds2U.jpg

I watch this documentary about Detroit each Thursday night...

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

No, it wasn't sensational TV.
People hate admitting that this country has 3rd world shit all over it.


:2 cents:

No it wasn't. I went to the Detroit Grand Prix a few years ago and some of us went "sight-seeing" the nasty abandoned ghetto third world parts are true.


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http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...e-body-jpg.jpg

i will never forget this story about Detroit

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...ticle-1.420592

Rated most violet city in the nation this year

David Byrne wrote a lot of interesting things about Detroit in his book "Bicycle Diaries" that made me want to visit to check out all the abandoned buildings. Not sure how safe it would be to do so, though.

Do you remember the name of this documentary?

Well, to be fair it looks like a cold case... they left it on ice...

I call bullshit. If that was really Detroit someone would have stollen his shoes.


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I just happened to stumble upon it on the French Canadian TV.

I'll try to find the reference

Asking price $1,000 ......


http://i.imgur.com/9ugIJL9.png


Check out more ...

Page 5 | Detroit Real Estate - Detroit, MI Homes for Sale - realtor.com®


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So technically, one could buy the house, demolish it and sit on the lot for 10-15 years then sell it 10x that when the estate picks up again?
I know it's a long shot but still sounds like a pretty secure investment...

There were some suburbs around Detroit that were giving houses away for free if you agreed to pay the back property taxes. Some of them were pretty nice places for less than $2,000. Also in some of those cities entire neighborhoods were bulldozed because all the homes were empty, nobody was buying them and the there were homeless, drug addicts and criminals living in the houses. The city decided it was better to bulldoze the houses and flatten the neighborhood than pay for the police to constantly be out there dealing with the people.

It's a crazy country when there are cities where a 4 bedroom house can cost you a million dollars and other cities where they literally can't give the house away.

here's a good article from NYT Mag last year

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/ma...c-detroit.html

damn. might be worth looking into. look at Pittsburgh's rebirth.

Pittsburghâ??s Comeback: The Story of Its Rebirth

Any of those cheap houses in white hoods?

they were doing the same with brownstones near Marcus Garvey park in Harlem about 20 years ago which are worth millions now.

of course not. gentrification goes like this:

blacks -> artists -> hipsters/gays -> gays/hipsters -> yuppies -> families

one catch is that you have to pay taxes for those 10-15 years... if it was actually likely that you would make a profit in 10-15 years they wouldn't be giving them away...

Fly to Detroit, stay with me in the Suburb and I'll give you a tour. The city itself if 140 square miles.. It's huge! With a lot abandoned.

Brad

Buying a house for $1500 will save enough money to spend thousands on mounted machine guns around the perimeter.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

:thumbsup:1orglaugh

I am curious HOW dangerous those parts are, if someone from locality could possibly chime in :)