According to the author, Chicago has “... more general obligation debt per capita than any of the 10 largest U.S. cities except New York.”
Not in a category with tens of thousands... but rather, NUMBER TWO in a category with TEN.
Umm—no. The category in paragraph five, the doom and gloom paragraph, was NEXT Detroit—not next of the top ten cities to do something or other. Detroit fell out of the top ten sometime around 1970, IIRC, and is presently sitting at 18.
If Cleveland, or for that matter, Sacramento, Birmingham or Memphis, goes into a death spiral first, I would say that the article’s thesis is off.
Yeah, Chicago is in a bad way. So are a lot of other places. Chicago has many more resources to bring to the table—competent people exist, and if brought in, have resources (such as a tax base and having control of the Illinois government) that may be employed in dealing with the problem. That flaglady thinks a number of other Illinois cities are in worse shape does not surprise me—I have a friend who works for Joliet and they sound like they are in real bad shape.
NEXT also makes a difference in that depending on how the first two or three go, others may alter their behaviour.
>> Detroit fell out of the top ten sometime around 1970, IIRC, and is presently sitting at 18.
Do you realize that when you continually compare “the Detroit that was” with “the Detroit that is”, you’re weakening your own argument? You have a tendency to do that.
>> If Cleveland, or for that matter, Sacramento, Birmingham or Memphis, goes into a death spiral first, I would say that the article’s thesis is off.
Wait... we’re talking not merely “cities that go bankrupt” but rather “cities that go bankrupt that are in Detroit’s class”. None of the cities you mention have the “iconic American city” status of Detroit. Hey, Stockton went bankrupt... no one compared Stockton with Detroit. At least not in the states, eh? By the way, whether or not the “heart of rock ‘n roll is in Cleveland”... Cleveland is NOT a city in the same class as Detroit and Chicago.