Detroit thread. Post Kwame, Monica, and $1 houses here.

[HVC]

Don't be a bitch?

Are you serious?

Dropping it in his lap. which, since she's the author, i assume is the mild version.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Neil has it right.  Detroit is a lost cause.  Honest people should leave so that it can be leveled without harming innocents.

[DontSayBanana]

Neil has it right.  Detroit is a lost cause.  Honest people should leave so that it can be leveled without harming innocents.

Look how well that worked in Gaza.

...Not that I actually disagree with either of you; just being contrarian.

EDIT: BTW, I sat back with a calculator and if Kwame's supposed to pay a million back in 5 years, he should actually be paying about $16,700 a month, so I think he's gotten as much of a break on the payment as he's going to.

[Malthus]

I found this on another site and I immediately thought you would like it, Sav - even the dead are leaving Detroit!

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080812/METRO08/808120367/1408/LOCAL

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Flight of the dead: Suburban families move loved ones from Detroit cemeteries

Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News

CLINTON TOWNSHIP-- At precisely 8:57 a.m., under an overcast sky, Francesco and Francesca Imbrunone were re-laid to rest. A man in a dark suit stood over their remains proclaiming that they "await the resurrection."

If that promise holds true, then it would be, in a way, the Imbrunones' second resurrection. As it happens, the couple was buried nearly 50 years ago in Detroit's Mount Olivet Cemetery on the city's east side. Then their grandchildren decided to disinter them, move them to the leafier suburbs and bury them again this particular morning.

"He'd complain, 'Why did you spend the money?' " said Francesco's granddaughter, Gerry Seip. "My grandmother? She'd just cry."

By now the statistics are as well known in London as they are in Livonia. Detroit has lost half its population since its heyday of the 1950s, and every year the city hemorrhages an estimated 5,000 people more. First it was white flight to the suburbs; then with the city's continued spiral into poverty and violence, blacks began to flee to those same suburbs.

And while census figures show that whites are returning to some of the nation's largest cities, Detroit is experiencing a flight of a different kind. As the Imbrunones' second funeral demonstrates, Detroit is experiencing the flight of the dead.

The movement of the dead from the nation's largest black city to its overwhelmingly white suburbs is a small, though socially symbolic phenomenon, revealing the grinding problems of race, crime and economics that plague both sides of Eight Mile.

From 2002 through 2007, the remains of about 1,000 people have been disinterred and moved out of the city, according to permits stored in metal filing cabinets in the city's department of health. Looked at in another way, for about every 30 living human beings who leave Detroit, one dead human being follows. Moreover, anecdotal evidence compiled by a Detroit professor suggests the figure may be twice as high, meaning city records may be incomplete and that thousands upon thousands of deceased people have been relocated from the city over the past 20 years.

Moving to Macomb

The practice appears to be most common among families like the Imbrunones: former east side Catholic Detroiters who moved to Macomb County years ago, miles away from their dearly departed. The cemetery that appears to lose the most is Mount Olivet, located in the heart of the wild east side, with about 100 disinterments a year. The destination of choice seems to be Resurrection Cemetery in Clinton Township, which is now home to 11 members of the Imbrunone family.

Although there is little information or statistical evidence regarding the phenomenon across the country, it is quite likely that Detroit and its surrounding communities lead the way, as it does in population loss among the living.

The reasons are two-fold, surmises Patrick Lynch, a Clawson funeral home director and executive board member of the National Funeral Directors Association. "People have to drive to a place that may take them through neighborhoods they otherwise may never go," he said. "Their safety might be compromised. Whether that is real or perceived, it's real to them.

"Second, families have left the city and they want to bring their family members closer to them," Lynch said. "People have grown older and they simply don't or can't drive to the city anymore. They want to be near to those they love."

Such is the case with the Imbrunone clan, whose patriarch Francesco came from Sicily to America in the hull of a ship in 1902 and made his new life in Detroit. He was an anonymous man, a laborer who lived in boarding houses and swept factory floors. He would return to Italy occasionally until his wife Francesca demanded that he bring her and their children to the United States in 1937.

Three generations of the Imbrunones made a home on the east side of Detroit near Harper and Gratiot where the trolley cars turned around, a place the Italians called Caccalupo. It was nine people in a first floor flat.

Francesco was a simple man, who drank only wine and is said to have washed his face with his mouth closed so that no water would touch his palate. His wife Francesca never learned English, but taught her granddaughters Italian. They attended Mass together and the family sold vegetables at Eastern Market, saved its money, and bought property in 1960 in St. Clair Shores. Francesco died a few months before the family left the city. He died happy, by all accounts. He went to nap with a belly-full of pasta and never awoke.
"He knew," said his granddaughter, Fran Palazzolo, 61. "He couldn't go. He didn't want to leave Detroit. But I guess he finally had to."

For fear, convenience

The granddaughters, being the next of kin, elected to pay the approximately $5,000 to move their grandparents to Macomb County because they wanted to be closer to them. "In our family you don't forget about your people," Palazzolo said. "I hope that's human. It's at least Italian."

Love. That was one part of the decision. There is another.

"To tell you the truth, yes, it's fear," Palazzolo said. "Have you been to Detroit? I pray the car doesn't break down. I cringe when I drive down Gratiot. I'm worried for my life. There's a lot of bad people in Detroit. But to tell you the truth, there's a lot of bad people out here. But at least we're closer this way."

Earlier this summer Peter Cracchiolo, 89, of Grosse Pointe Shores, removed his mother and sister from Mount Olivet and relocated them to Resurrection. Cracchiolo, too, grew up on the city's east side and his family was part of the great white exodus. His explanation for moving his dearly departed was convenience, though the Detroit cemetery is closer to his home.

"I've already got relatives up there," he said of the suburban cemetery. "I've got friends up there. It's one-stop visiting this way. Me, I don't forget my people. No sir."


The children of Jack W. Noble Sr. moved their father in May to the Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly from Gethsemane Cemetery in Detroit, citing the poor condition and upkeep of the cemetery, according to a permit filed with the city.

Dr. Stephen Vogel, dean of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy, believes the out-migration of the dead from Detroit is undercounted.

He and his researchers conducted a study three years ago, interviewing the director of each of Detroit's 28 cemeteries. According to that study, about 400 to 500 disinterments occur each year.

"What it says to me is that there is a deeply ingrained fear on the part of suburbanites in terms of their attitude toward the city and its hold is very powerful and very deep," Vogel said. "When they're afraid to cross Eight Mile to visit a cemetery, it tells you what we're up against and any solutions are not going to be easy."

Which is not to say that cemeteries like Mount Olivet are emptying out. In fact, 1,200 burials a year are conducted at Mount Olivet since the cemetery made the decision 10 years ago to allow non-Catholics to enter, said Mark Gracely, the cemetery's director. "We've even had people mail us cremated remains from Florida," he said.

As for the Imbrunones, their family took the headstones with them and the cost of the old plot was applied toward the new plot.

In the meantime, the old east side home of the family has been razed; leaving no physical memory of the humble lives lived by Francesco and Francesca Imbrunone.

[Savonarola]

I found this on another site and I immediately thought you would like it, Sav - even the dead are leaving Detroit!

This will hurt the poll numbers in the upcoming election.   

[Berkut]

When you read a story like that, I wonder what the person who is the subject of the story thinks when they read it?

Of course, the answer is almost certainly that they did NOT read it, but lets say they did.

Do they really not understand how they are creating their own problems - that at least *some* portion of their poverty and shitty life is a result of their own actions?

Detroit might be poor, but it doesn't have to be a pig sty - it is that way because of the actions of the people who live there.

I have to conclude that this is just another example of the power of humans to simply not connect their actions to the world they live in. I am often very impressed at the lengths the human mind can go to keep that wall up.

[Savonarola]

My great grandmother is buried in Mt. Olivet cemetery.  Her funeral was in the mid-80s when I was about 13.  I remember that we had to give the funeral director a ride because his car had been stolen during the service.

[Malthus]

When you read a story like that, I wonder what the person who is the subject of the story thinks when they read it?

Of course, the answer is almost certainly that they did NOT read it, but lets say they did.

Do they really not understand how they are creating their own problems - that at least *some* portion of their poverty and shitty life is a result of their own actions?

Detroit might be poor, but it doesn't have to be a pig sty - it is that way because of the actions of the people who live there.

I have to conclude that this is just another example of the power of humans to simply not connect their actions to the world they live in. I am often very impressed at the lengths the human mind can go to keep that wall up.

From what I've read I suspect that may of 'em would be of the opinion, should they read it, that such stories display the racism of the suburbanites moving their dead.

[Berkut]

When you read a story like that, I wonder what the person who is the subject of the story thinks when they read it?

Of course, the answer is almost certainly that they did NOT read it, but lets say they did.

Do they really not understand how they are creating their own problems - that at least *some* portion of their poverty and shitty life is a result of their own actions?

Detroit might be poor, but it doesn't have to be a pig sty - it is that way because of the actions of the people who live there.

I have to conclude that this is just another example of the power of humans to simply not connect their actions to the world they live in. I am often very impressed at the lengths the human mind can go to keep that wall up.

From what I've read I suspect that may of 'em would be of the opinion, should they read it, that such stories display the racism of the suburbanites moving their dead.

Talking about the story above that - about the guy getting pissed at the woman who told him to pick up his trash.

[Neil]

Neil has it right.  Detroit is a lost cause.  Honest people should leave so that it can be leveled without harming innocents.

Look how well that worked in Gaza.

Would anybody really care if Detroit started firing rockets into Michigan or Southern Ontario?

[MadImmortalMan]

My great grandmother is buried in Mt. Olivet cemetery.  Her funeral was in the mid-80s when I was about 13.  I remember that we had to give the funeral director a ride because his car had been stolen during the service.

I'm sorry for laughing. I'm a bad person.

[MadImmortalMan]

Would anybody really care if Detroit started firing rockets into Michigan or Southern Ontario?

They should leave the Hamiltonians alone.

[Malthus]

Would anybody really care if Detroit started firing rockets into Michigan or Southern Ontario?

This is Detroit we're talking about.

The rocket budget would go to pay off various politicians and there would only be enough to buy a single squib, which would fail to explode - whereupon those same politicans would issue press conferences denouncing Whities' crappy racist rocket sales. 

[Savonarola]

A major work of fiction is coming soon to the desk of Kym Worthy.

Worthy wants Kilpatrick's books in 10 days
BY M.L. ELRICK
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy wants a judge to give ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick 10 days to reveal his assets.

In a motion the Free Press just obtained, the prosecutor says she needs the information before a scheduled Oct. 28 hearing she requested to determine Kilpatrick's ability to make timely restitution on the $1 million he owes the City of Detroit stemming from the text-message scandal.

Worthy is also seeking financial information from Kilpatrick's "immediate family," the latest indication that Worthy suspects that some assets are in the name or control of Carlita Kilpatrick, the ex-mayor's wife.

Worthy has accused Kwame Kilpatrick of violating his probation for, among other things, lowering his monthly restitution payment this month from $6,000 to $3,000 without prior court approval.

[Savonarola]

Want to move to Detroit?

Detroit's fight against vacant land gets tougher
Tax foreclosures skyrocket
BY JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

In case anyone doubted it, Detroit's vacant land problem, already bad, is getting worse in a hurry.

The number of tax-delinquent properties listed for sale in Wayne County's annual auction beginning Oct. 19 has swelled to almost 9,000 this year, from about 2,000 properties in 2007, said Terrance Keith, Wayne County's deputy treasurer.

The vast majority of those parcels are vacant lots in Detroit, he said, and most are unlikely to find buyers at the annual tax auction.

Detroit already suffers more vacancy than any city in the nation, except perhaps post-Katrina New Orleans, urban planners and academic researchers said. An estimated 40 square miles of the city's 139 square miles of land are now vacant, an amount of land roughly the size of San Francisco or Boston.

The extent of the tax foreclosures underscores the efforts by Mayor Dave Bing, planners and activists in and out of city government to find new purposes for the land, including urban agriculture and greenways.

The foreclosure crisis has added significantly to the problem. Detroit's Office of Foreclosure Prevention said last week that 17.3% of Detroit's residences had gone through foreclosure through the end of 2008, with many more added this year.

Some fear tax auctions only add to problem of abandoned property

At the corner of Freud and Dickerson on Detroit's east side, a parcel of vacant land stretches seemingly for blocks without a single house or other structure on it.

Five lots on that stretch will go up for auction in mid-October as part of Wayne County's annual sale of properties seized because of unpaid property taxes. The lots are small, 30 to 40 feet wide by 100 feet deep, and in a better real estate market, they might fetch a buyer.

But there's a good chance they won't sell at all, because most properties offered at the county's annual land sale don't, said Terrance Keith, Wayne County's deputy treasurer. And that means those lots might stay in the county's inventory or revert to the City of Detroit, which already owns tens of thousands of unwanted parcels.

Huge problem is growing

The county's annual auction, which is to be held this year beginning Oct. 19, provides a look at Detroit's vacant-land problem. That problem is huge, and it's growing.

The latest U.S. Postal Service data show that as of June, about 17% of Detroit's addresses appeared to be vacant. That didn't count thousands of other vacant lots to which the postal service no longer tries to deliver mail.

Two years ago, during the 2007 auction, the county listed about 2,000 tax-delinquent properties for sale, Keith said. This year, following the collapse of the real estate market and the nation's economy, almost 9,000 properties are to go on the block during the auction, which can last up to three days.

The vast majority of those parcels are vacant lots in Detroit, Keith said, and if history is a guide, most of those won't sell.

The problem of what to do with tax-foreclosed property is a question contained within the larger debate about Detroit's growing vacancy. Planners and activists have suggested many solutions, from turning the land into urban farms to somehow repopulating it with the help of billions of dollars in federal aid, if such aid ever becomes available.

In the meantime, many critics said that using a tax-foreclosure auction to dispose of the land probably makes the vacancy problem worse, not better.

Speculators take advantage

Margaret Dewar, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan, said last week that the most common buyers at tax auctions are speculators, based either locally or around the country. They hope to buy cheap land and flip the properties for a quick profit.

She contended that more deserving groups that should get control of the land, like neighborhood community nonprofits or homeowners who want to buy the lot next to them, often lose out to the speculators.

"Tax auctions are a very bad mechanism for taking any control of what your city becomes," Dewar said.

Dan Kildee, the treasurer of Genesee County, where Flint is located, also dislikes the auction process. Kildee chairs the Genesee County Land Bank and arranges for sales of tax-delinquent land on a negotiated, parcel-by-parcel basis, cutting out speculators.

"It's pretty unusual that the auction produces a responsible investor," Kildee said.

In a notable example of what can happen, two local speculators bought a parking lot belonging to the Perfecting Church on Detroit's east side at the county's 2003 tax auction without the knowledge of the church, which didn't realize its lot was being auctioned off in error.

The buyers offered to sell the lot back to Perfecting Church. The church sued instead, but it had to go all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court before getting its property back.

How the process works

Keith agreed that that the auction method of disposing of surplus property isn't the best. It just happens to be the one outlined under state law, and one that almost all counties in Michigan use.

Keith said he would like to see changes in state law making it easier for property owners to avoid foreclosure and hang on to their properties, so the parcels don't wind up in the annual auction.

In the meantime, the county will carry on with the annual sale. There are actually two auction sales each year. The first, in mid-September, requires buyers to bid at least the amount of delinquent taxes due on a property, which can run into many thousands of dollars.

Few people buy at that sale, waiting for the follow-up auction in mid-October, when the minimum bid drops to $500 per parcel.

Keith used the example of a vacant building with $15,000 in delinquent taxes due on it. "In a hot economy, the $15,000 would be a bargain," he said. "In the economy that we have now, that's an outrageous price, a significantly overstated value, given the market conditions."

Other counties also auction properties seized for delinquent property taxes, but no county has the volume that Wayne County does because of the Detroit parcels.

Oakland County, for example, will auction tax-delinquent property beginning Oct. 13, but the county treasurer's Web site lists only a few hundred parcels for sale.

Of course this isn't a surprise; sub-prime mortgages were targeted at minorities, the city population is shrinking and the economy is terrible.  Naturally there are going to be a lot more properties on the auction block.  Still, just how abandoned the city is becoming is surprising.