Are you presenting your Great White North Privilege?
Since the 1960's I have had a ringside seat at the epic destruction of what was once the most prosperous city in America. The statistics are incredible. In the 1950's Detroit had almost 2 million people and was a bastion of home ownership. Today there are less than 700,000 with great swaths of prairie where houses once stood. You will have to look hard to find an historical counterpart for such a decline.
From a city with the highest per capita income in the world it has become a complete basket case. I have seen former mayors and councilmen jailed, and many more who should have been. I have seen a public school system that once graduated literate, productive individuals degenerate into a holding zone for future inmates. I have seen the main street turn from a showcase into what looks like the world's largest outdoor prison/insane asylum.
And what has been the one constant since the decline began? A liberal democratic mayor and council. From Jerry Cavanaugh to Mike Dugan the dems have had this city in their grip and they have squeezed the life out of it.
Just a couple of observations on some differences from the Great White North across the river. I live in a city about a third of the population of Detroit, separated by a mile wide river and an international boundary. There is not a single public school in my city with a metal detector, a guard of any kind, or locked doors during school hour. The public high school my children went to has a graduation rate close to 95% and 99% of those kids go on to college or university. We have a university here that is rinky-dink by US standards but it has become a pipeline for engineers and nurses who work in Southeast Michigan.
I could go on but I will leave you with this. Detroit had almost 300 murders last year. My city, a mile away with one third of the population had ONE homicide. We actually went 18 months recently without a single murder.