khamsun
|
|
Is Michigan the coolest state ?
| 
Dec 2 19:24 UTC 2003 |
well when it comes about social behavior, not weather...
My question comes from my experience of wandering the net: I have seen
few places (on the US side of www) where people keep talking about
anything in such balanced yet humorous way, and grex is holding on
time... I know much here are not from Michigan but still is the core ?
Any ideas ?
PS: I'm european, so that makes maybe for my peculiar point of view...
And the nearest I know from Michigan is what I'm told when staying on
the other side of the lakes, and that is in fact more scaring than
appealing. (well just the regular stuff about urban violence, guns
everywhere, and brain-dead capitalism making Detroit one day nice and
overnight De(s)tro(y)ed...)
|
slynne
|
|
response 2 of 55:
|
Dec 2 21:19 UTC 2003 |
There is no denying that Detroit has a problem. All one has to do is
drive through it to see all the burned out buildings and such. It
really makes me sad. And it makes me mad too because I think it is
wrong that we can spend so much money reconstructing Iraq while at the
same time letting a city in our own country fall apart.
But, Detroit is only a very small part of Michigan. The town where I
live which is around 30 miles east of Detroit, is very nice.
|
polygon
|
|
response 7 of 55:
|
Dec 2 23:58 UTC 2003 |
No, I think Detroit had a million people as recently as the 1990 census.
Detroit has some corruption, sure, and a history of brutal and racist
policing, but it is NOTHING like New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston, or
Chicago, or Miami. Corruption in those cities is deeply woven into the
civic culture, and all kinds of bribery and abuses are just taken for
granted.
Detroit is not like that. Just for example, the governmental affairs VP
of one of the contracting firms which built the RenCen said afterwards
that Detroit was the first major U.S. city they had ever worked in where
the building department was not on the take.
Meanwhile, one of the Chicago newspapers secretly bought a neighborhood
tavern and staffed it with investigative reporters. They documented that
bribes and payoffs and kickbacks were demanded almost daily, backed by
credible threats to shut down the place.
People who have lived their lives in Michigan (squeaky-clean compared to
the national average) have no idea what real municipal corruption is like.
As someone who believes in reform and good government, it has always been
a frustrating contrast that deeply corrupt Chicago is "a city that works,"
whereas comparatively clean Detroit is "a city that failed."
|