I'm not american, but I know Detroit is a terrible city right now. I read it online someone say RoboCop accurately predict Detroit will become a warzone in future, because the city is a heaven when the movie came out.
Wait what? Is that right? Detroit was good city in 80s? Robocop predict the future?
It wasn’t as bad a many big cities are today, BUT back in those days people weren’t willing to put up with crime like they are now.
Back then residents actually wanted their police to be hands on and aggressively enforce the laws, which is the complete opposite of what the public expects of police today.
What? Now is worse than then? I thought crime rate peak at 90s, then keep dropping.
shareThere were more murders then, but that was because hospitals weren’t as good then so more people died. Also they didn’t have cellphones, so more people died because it took longer to get people to hospitals.
If you just look at the number of shootings, they are higher now. It’s just that more shooting victims survive today so they aren’t “murders.”
Crime has skyrocketed over the past couple of years due to a bunch of liberal mayors and DA’s who see thugs and criminals as victims so they let them out of jail and refuse to prosecute. And the whole time they don’t give a good fuck about any innocent victim who gets raped, Robbed, murdered, pushed onto a subway, etc.
In today’s society Clarence Boddiker and his gang, Ron Miller and the rapist who got shot in the dick would be seen as the victims, while the woman they tried to rape, officer Lewis, Murphy, Sargent Reed, etc. would be seen as the oppressors.
The population of the city of Detroit peaked in 1950 and has been declining ever since
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit
1940 1,623,452 3.5%
1950 1,849,568 13.9%
1960 1,670,144 −9.7%
1970 1,514,063 −9.3%
1980 1,203,368 −20.5%
1990 1,027,974 −14.6%
The movie "Airplane!" released in 1980 had a line where Robert Hays was describing a tough sleazy bar and he remarked "It was worse than Detroit."
I don't know where the "Rust Belt" officially starts and ends. I had a class in school where academics classified the area from Chicago to Pittsburgh as its own "special" designation "Chi-Pitts Metro" or something like that. I don't know why it didn't include the "Great Lakes" cities like Buffalo, Detroit, Duluth... all heavy manufacturing places that prospered during WWII and after, but then started dying once Europe rebuilt.
Without looking it up, I'd guess all those cities I named, plus Cleveland, Dayton, and a lot more, have the same population declines as Detroit.
And of course people moving from the urban centers to the suburbs...
Thanks for the information! I don't remember the line in Airplane!. Look like Detroit was a warzone in 70s.
shareI just learned something new that I will share with you. I wanted to note that the professional baseball team there is the Detroit Tigers, and in 1984 they won the World Series (championship) and there was massive rioting in the city. the celebrations that followed, attended by over 100,000 people, deteriorated into rioting. One person died, several more were injured, one Detroit Police Department car was set on fire, and four others were severely damaged.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_riots#:~:text=July%2028%2D29.-,1984,four%20others%20were%20severely%20damaged.
Also, because of the decades of population decline/escape, there were many vacant houses in Detroit. A "tradition" called "Devils Night" was "celebrated' every October 30 (October 31 is Halloween.) People would light these empty houses on fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Night
I remember the World Series riot and Devils night, but what I didn't know before was that rioting in Detroit is as old as the city itself. The first riot, social unrest related to enabling fugitive slaves to escape to Canada, was recorded in 1833.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_riots#:~:text=July%2028%2D29.-,1984,four%20others%20were%20severely%20damaged.
I thought Detroit was one of the smartest cities in the world. They did create the automobile
shareI also didn't know there was such a thing as "Mischief Night" every October 30...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischief_Night
"The earliest reference to Mischief Night is from 1790 when a headmaster encouraged a school play which ended in "an Ode to Fun which praises children's tricks on Mischief Night in most approving terms"
The things you learn going down the rabbit hole in Detroit...
Robocop was shot all over the place :
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093870/locations?ref_=tt_dt_loc
Parts of Detroit is coming back in a big way.
Rural Central Appalachia is way worse. Read the Lexington Herald-Leader. Lexington, Ky., is close enough to Appalachia that the Herald-Leader carries news from eastern Kentucky. I guarantee that if you read it, you’ll find plenty of stories about crimes in Appalachia. If they’re not about murders, they’re about accidental shootings, illegal drugs, child abuse, robberies…the whole crime catalog.
Basically the future Robocop predicted.