Not always the state, nor actually the city even. City used to be awesome, too. Nor did the unions have much to do with Detroit's downfall. It was another factor.
Archer tried to put the city on the right track but the King Kwame Administration and the collapse of the auto industry were the last straw. Easy mortgages allowed folks from the inner city to finally make it to the suburbs and Detroit lost the last of its productive class and tax base. Pretty much all that is welfare mooches. Downtown was alright the last time I was there but the areas getting there look like Stalingrad after the siege.
Cavanaugh started the decline, Coleman Young exacerbated the process, Archer tried to arrest it and Kwame reveled in it. What is left is a dead city with no law and order.