Biden tells NAACP dinner: Detroit is 'coming back'

[Faygo Kid]

Source: Detroit News

Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd attending an NAACP fundraiser in Detroit on Sunday that the city is "coming back."

Biden lauded Mayor Mike Duggan and said he "turned the lights back on" and that "buses are moving … the streets are plowed, the trash is picked up."

Detroit exited the nation's largest municipal bankruptcy in December, eliminating or restructuring $7 billion in debt. . .

Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2015/05/03/detroit-naacp-leader-says-blacks-need-help-dc/26843029/

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As a native Detroiter, I am excited about the passion and commitment we are seeing in Detroit. Great speech tonight. When I was younger, about 20 years ago, I went to the NAACP dinners, and always had a great time.

[Skittles]

1. I am rooting for Detroit

yes INDEED

[Spitfire of ATJ]

2. Let's see them start building high speed rail for the whole planet.

[delrem]

4. You're describing China's New Silk Road.

Paid for by US debt, after US wars of choice.

[Demeter]

6. MDOT pays $1.1M a year for rail cars it can't use

The State of Michigan is paying $1.1 million a year to lease 23 passenger rail cars it can't use — and likely won't use for at least another two years — as the taxpayer tab for the troubled project approaches $12 million and counting.

The 1950s and '60s-era double-decker cars are sitting in a rail yard in Owosso, where they are expected to remain for the indefinite future.

The Michigan Department of Transportation started leasing the cars in 2010 for two commuter rail passenger services proposed between Detroit and Ann Arbor, and Howell and Ann Arbor....

http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/31/mdot-costly-idle-rail-passenger-cars/22655363/

AND WE ARE STILL PAYING RENT ON THESE USELESS THINGS!

[romanic]

3. Detroit is coming back.

But there's still SO MUCH that needs to be done for the entire city, not just the downtown and adjacent areas.

[Demeter]

5. No, Detroit is not coming back. Disney-Detroit is being erected on the scoured land.

Detroit was a home for working families: schools, churches, utilities, services, small businesses and large manufacturing plants, nearly 2 million people at its peak. The last 700,000 are being removed by tax foreclosures, water shut-offs, crime, unemployment and death. All levels of government are sweeping away the noble, productive city of the past, the engine of growth that fed the entire state of Michigan.

This new, plastic version being erected on the old site, is prettified for the tourists and mansion-ized for the wealthy. It's not Detroit but Disneyland, and it has no future to promise to those who come to live there. There will be nothing for children, unless they are children of wealth. There will be no opportunity. There will be restaurants and tourist traps, and some portion of low-wage service workers to cater to the well-heeled, but it will be an imitation of life, a pretend city.

[ariesgem]

8. Gentrification is coming to an urban area near you...

Project New York is all but complete. Los Angeles, the bulldozers are here. Our local politicians are proposing to rename South Central L.A. to "SOLA" to attract a "new element" to the area. To me it's a straight-up, in-your-face, economic AND ethnic cleansing of our urban cities in ought to pave a way for the "hipsters".

[appalachiablue]

9. Same gentrification and investment by hedge funds and others in Chicago, DC, Seattle,

San Fran and London for the large investor class that can afford it and is driving it. Extreme housing costs, charter schools, Whole Foods, some green projects and shopping and services hipster style. No place for the lower paid workers and displaced previous neighborhood residents. Last year an apartment building in DC, six blocks from the WH and near Chinatown, was sold to a developer for conversion to luxury condos. The price for longtime working class apartment tenants who by law had first right to buy into the deal and remain- $900,000.

[appalachiablue]

10. Thanks for your post, it's the reality I see also. A month ago Tavis Smiley on PBS did a show

on DETROIT with financial and corporate reps. excited, bubbling over about all the new investment and development which is just what you say- retail, hotels, tourist places. After less than half an hour Tavis did ask about the neighborhoods and people in need. The brief response amounted to that they would benefit, that's all. (second hand I gather). Because of the focus I couldn't watch more than 20 minutes.

[Cha]

7. I'll take VP Biden's word over the internet naysayers. Mahalo Biden.

Thanks Faygo Kid