Greetings from an Industrial Graveyard

[George BeckerParticipant @georgebecker85540]

Richard.

Hello. Regarding Detroit housing prices. The city has been aggressively demolishing totally deteriorated housing of the past couple years. I believe speculators and rehabbers have bought up most of the marginally liveable or restorable housing while what remains on the market may some of the better properties. Much of the vacant land has been purchased by adjacent property owners to expand their lots I even read a few years ago that there as a tree plantation being started in the city on a farm sized portion of land. There is also redevelopment in the central core in some areas that has driven up values somewhat in those areas. However large swathes of the city still remain pretty desolate.

George

[George BeckerParticipant @georgebecker85540]

Neil,

By decent disposable income I meant that audiences had money to spend on entertainment and support numerous venues, and musicians, especially those starting out, had a way to make ends meet, by means of relatively well paid employment, without being totally reliant on earning from music. Certainly artistic inspiration can be found in the surrounding material culture, but it becomes a bit easier to achieve artistic goals when ones time is available for art instead of simply working interminable hours at subsistence wages.

George

[Andrew EvansParticipant @andrewevans67134]

It sounds like the comparison with an ex-industrial city like Sheffield doesn't go that far, cities here never had the reduction in population and there aren't really many totally desolate areas. Sheffield is a relatively prosperous place now, centred around the 2 universities and the tech industry with smaller specialist steel plants still doing ok AFAIK. Whisper it quietly but maybe the EU investment into post industrial areas has really helped here .

In terms of the ownership of car companies – Landrover was owned and run from the UK, decades of under investment and poor management bought it to its knees – the ownership moved first to the Germans (BMW) then Ford (USA) and now Tata (India) and its become a world leading car brand that employs thousands of well paid, skilled workers here in the UK. So does it matter who ultimately owns manufacturing companies – its major shareholders from around the world anyway.

[George BeckerParticipant @georgebecker85540]

Andrew,

Glad to hear that Sheffield has survived with less pain than Detroit. In the 1950's Detroit proper had a population of about 1.8 Million. Now it is in the 600 thousands. You are quite right about corporate ownership, it just irks me to not call things what they are.

George

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