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The people of Detroit are taking no prisoners.

Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they’re offering no apologies.

“We got to have a little Old West up here in Detroit. That’s what it’s gonna take,” Detroit resident Julia Brown told The Daily.

The last time Brown, 73, called the Detroit police, they didn’t show up until the next day. So she applied for a permit to carry a handgun and says she’s prepared to use it against the young thugs who have taken over her neighborhood, burglarizing entire blocks, opening fire at will and terrorizing the elderly with impunity.

“I don’t intend to be one of their victims,” said Brown, who has lived in Detroit since the late 1950s. “I’m planning on taking one out.”

The Detroit Fire Department reported an eye-popping 41% drop in arsons last year, a stunning feat considering Mayor Bing’s administration closed down seven firehouses and laid off firefighters that summer.

Turns out, arsons were vastly underreported. An analysis of records obtained from the Fire Department and insurance analysts shows firefighters responded to more than 5,000 suspicious fires last year but only reported 562 arsons.

Part of the problem: The number of arson investigators who determine the cause of suspicious fires dropped by nearly 60% since 2009. The arson unit is so understaffed that it only investigates one out of every five suspicious blazes.

Fires that are not investigated, including ones where Molotov cocktails are found, aren’t reported as arsons.

t will be very interesting to see how all of this plays out. But one thing is for sure - the city of Detroit is flat broke. One of the greatest cities in the history of the world is just a shell of its former self. The following are 25 facts about the fall of Detroit that will leave you shaking your head...

1) At this point, the city of Detroit owes money to more than 100,000 creditors.

2) Detroit is facing $20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities. That breaks down to more than $25,000 per resident.

3) Back in 1960, the city of Detroit actually had the highest per-capita income in the entire nation.

4) In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are less than 27,000.

5) Between December 2000 and December 2010, 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.

6) There are lots of houses available for sale in Detroit right now for $500 or less.

7) At this point, there are approximately 78,000 abandoned homes in the city.

8) About one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict.

9) An astounding 47 percent of the residents of the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.

10) Less than half of the residents of Detroit over the age of 16 are working at this point.

11) If you can believe it, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

12) Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, but over the past 60 years the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent.

13) The city of Detroit is now very heavily dependent on the tax revenue it pulls in from the casinos in the city. Right now, Detroit is bringing in about 11 million dollars a month in tax revenue from the casinos.

14) There are 70 "Superfund" hazardous waste sites in Detroit.

15) 40 percent of the street lights do not work.

16) Only about a third of the ambulances are running.

17) Some ambulances in the city of Detroit have been used for so long that they have more than 250,000 miles on them.

18) Two-thirds of the parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down since 2008.

19) The size of the police force in Detroit has been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade.

20) When you call the police in Detroit, it takes them an average of 58 minutes to respond.

21) Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

22) The violent crime rate in Detroit is five times higher than the national average.

23) The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.

24) Today, police solve less than 10 percent of the crimes that are committed in Detroit.

25) Crime has gotten so bad in Detroit that even the police are telling people to "enter Detroit at your own risk".

It is easy to point fingers and mock Detroit, but the truth is that the rest of America is going down the exact same path that Detroit has gone down.

Detroit just got there first.

All over this country, there are hundreds of state and local governments that are also on the verge of financial ruin...

"Everyone will say, 'Oh well, it's Detroit. I thought it was already in bankruptcy,' " said Michigan State University economist Eric Scorsone. "But Detroit is not unique. It's the same in Chicago and New York and San Diego and San Jose. It's a lot of major cities in this country. They may not be as extreme as Detroit, but a lot of them face the same problems."

Shafpocalypse Now wrote:
....and now we are basically fucked.

Shafpocalypse Now wrote:Detroit is a bit of a microcosm of how the push for the globalization of industry and the US' demand for cheap imported goods have fucked the economy. If the US had been significantly more isolationist, a higher level of employment and a culture of industry would have been sustained.

Instead, we took the easier path, started importing everything, you're cheap shoes made by child slave labor, for example....and now we are basically fucked.

Pinky wrote:

Shafpocalypse Now wrote:Detroit is a bit of a microcosm of how the push for the globalization of industry and the US' demand for cheap imported goods have fucked the economy. If the US had been significantly more isolationist, a higher level of employment and a culture of industry would have been sustained.

Instead, we took the easier path, started importing everything, you're cheap shoes made by child slave labor, for example....and now we are basically fucked.

Bullshit.

Detroit is proof that heavy-handed government "economic development" policies don't usually work very well. But at least you're right about taking the (politically) easier path. That path included stripping people of property rights to hand out favors to multinational corporations, as well as other government support for underperforming firms. And now you're saying, "If only we could have fucked over more Americans to hand out favors to corporations based in Detroit..."

Shafpocalypse Now wrote:Detroit is a bit of a microcosm of how the push for the globalization of industry and the US' demand for cheap imported goods have fucked the economy. If the US had been significantly more isolationist, a higher level of employment and a culture of industry would have been sustained.

Instead, we took the easier path, started importing everything, you're cheap shoes made by child slave labor, for example....and now we are basically fucked.

Shafpocalypse Now wrote:Detroit. Dead.

Shapecharge wrote:Mr. Pink, if you wouldn't mind, expand a little bit on what you mentioned about economic development. Do you think cities do themselves a disservice in the long run by abating property taxes, kicking back sales taxes, buying land etc. in a effort to get, or retain corporate entities? I'm really asking and not trying to start some shit. As a professional economist your opinion has merit.

I see this done a lot and I can't help but wonder about the validity of "modeling" programs used to develop incentive proposals to businesses. Cities seem almost willing to give almost all their revenue streams away in an attempt to land the big one.

Shapecharge wrote:Andy, what about radioactive Japs? They need a place to call home too. Wait, check that. Isn't that how Mothra got created? We can't have a giant moth fucking up shit...the price of gas will go through the roof.

baffled wrote:

Shapecharge wrote:Andy, what about radioactive Japs? They need a place to call home too. Wait, check that. Isn't that how Mothra got created? We can't have a giant moth fucking up shit...the price of gas will go through the roof.

You guys all think this is soooo funny, but a radioactive Jap, or perhaps the result of said radioactivity could be a good thing for Detroit. It's what we call a hard reset: