Posted on 02/08/2005 5:00:55 AM PST by wmichgrad
DETROIT (AP) — The number of Detroit residents has fallen below 900,000 for the first time since 1920, according to estimates released by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments.
The agency said Monday that its estimate of the city's population, as of Feb. 1, is 899,387. That's a 5.5-percent drop — or 51,883 people — since the 2000 U.S. Census, which showed the city had dropped below 1 million.
Detroit's population peaked at about 2 million in the early 1950s. Since 2000, when it had 951,270 residents, Detroit has lost the most people of any U.S. city with 100,000 or more residents.
"Clearly, that's sobering news," Howard Hughey, a spokesman for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, said of the SEMCOG estimate.
"A lot of this decline is economic flight and we're aggressively addressing the root of that flight," Hughey told the Detroit Free Press. "We will continue to add strategies to grow Detroit neighborhood by neighborhood."
Annual population estimates compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau usually count about 10,000 fewer residents than does SEMCOG. The annual Census Bureau estimates will be available in July.
On the Net:
Southeast Michigan Council of Governments: http://www.semcog.org/
U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/
You can virtually go there now.
The Chicago machine had a lot of old world cunning and tenacity, and was quite Machiavellian in seeing what had to be done to stay in power and doing it. Detroit politicians seem to have been more of the naive new world sort, used to playing second fiddle to corporations, unions and the federal government and settling for what they could get from them. That docility pleased postwar liberals but it proved to be the death of Detroit.
In some respects that may be true, however Cincinnati's downtown and the area in closest proximity, which is predominantly black, doesn't come close to the blighted look of downtown Detroit. Cincinnati is relatively clean with most properties and streets in reasonably good repair.
We have the same shirts in Rochester NY. They have a Colt 1911 .45 pistol on them and say "Thanks for visiting Rochester, NY... We'll get ya next time!"
There are some cities it just is not safe to walk in.
I don't think having a mayor named Kwame caused the problems...it's the result.
He is not the first incompetent mayor they have had. It is really bad when they are so out of it they can't even steal small amounts and not get caught.
I worked for awhile in downtown Detroit (Fisher Building). My first day there, I was told "whatever you do, do NOT stay at the office past 4:30 PM" I took their advice.
You will not get middle class families to move to where they are not safe.
Yep. I live in the St. Louis metro area (not in the city) and we have the same problem. Everyone is leaving the city and metro for the western burbs of St. Francis, Washington, and Jefferson counties where the government is republican and taxes are low.
All of our public schools are horrible.
In the early ninties book, Day Of Reckoning, this is called moving to the exurbs..a minimum of one hours drive away from the city. It's happening all over the US.
My wife and I live in Harris county Tx, the same county as Houston. We are talking of moving in a few years to the next county becase taxes are lower. When will the politicos learn lower taxes equal growth.
Bet there are still more than 900,000 registered dims in Detroit.
I hear that Detroit's mayor no longer presents a "key to the city" to various dignitaries, he now presents them the "crowbar to the city."
Lookout below! Philadelphia will be racing Detroit to the bottom, though. And for all this, the intellectual ninnies still can't figure out why these cities are losing population....
bump ....
I KNEW you had to be from Grand Rapids when you posted that. Howell's closer to Lansing than Detroit. Brighton about 1/2way between them both.
A lot of difference here. Little crime, the guns here are legal, a rural attitude still for the most part, and we're more Republican than Kent County, let alone Detroit. :)
St. Louis & Cleveland both had pops of over 800,000 circa 1950, now they are under 400,000.
I am a realtor. Send them my way.
Just remember that in the halftime show they have cancelled the fireworks to afraid that it would be n=mistaken for the usual tracer fire.
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