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The "yoots" will probably start burning cars in Detroit tomorrow.

I live just north of Detroit. I can honestly wonder if anyone would know if the yoots were burning cars. Being that I will be statistically safer when I go to Baghdad next month than I am in downtown Detroit, will anyone actually be able to notice the extra five cars burning?

Property crime against cars in Detroit is endemic. Police don't respond to it, residents at visitors take it for granted. The only people seriously concerned about a rash of car fires would be the car strippers who burn their hands trying to rip off the cars. As for Baghdad, it's about 40% more dangerous than the Detroit average (so saith Google Answers). Probably a lot more dangerous than downtown, somewhat less dangerous than certain neighborhoods at night. All sweeping generalizations of course, YMMV.

I doubt Google Answers (is that like Yahoo Answers?) numbers as they probably use AP sources for their statistics and the AP has been disproved time and again on casualty numbers for violence in Baghdad (AP reports are heavily inflated). However, neither are places I would want to go walking around unarmed, unarmored, and alone. This is sad because I remember going to the Detroit Science Center and Art Museum as a teenager.

You are correct, the car strippers do get upset when their product sources goes up in flames. It ruins their manicures.

Though I doubt Detroit is as bad as France's car burning problems. Unfortunately for Detroit, it tries to claim areas as far out as Troy, Sterling Heights, Dearborn, and Macomb as "Metro Detroit" even though these areas have little desire to be part of Detroit proper. Unfortunately for these places, we are actually not THAT far from downtown Detroit.