It is the lot of modern cities that they may lose their glory thanks to debt. Pompeii may have been lost to a volcano and Troy to the Trojan horse, but Detroit — once the pride of America, the symbol of its national dream and the maker once of the most automobiles in the world — because it is in such decline, forced the city managers to declare bankruptcy last week.
Concern for the city’s art collection, which includes works by the likes of Vincent van Gogh, Matisse and Diego Rivera that alone are said to be worth $2.5 billion, is not totally an elitist concern as the art is being held in trust for the people. But the lot of about 30,000 current and former city workers, whose $9 billion pension and health benefits are under threat, is far more poignant as the city sinks under a $20 billion debt burden.
Ironically, Detroit is threatened by under-population as people paying taxes have moved elsewhere even as the automobile industry hit the speed bumps of globalisation.
General Motors, an enduring symbol of the city with its HQ still there, and other automakers may have recovered from a bankruptcy threat a few years ago, but, apparently, the federal government is said to be not too inclined to bail out the ghost city with 80,000 buildings unoccupied and 60 per cent of its streetlights knocked out with no money to replace them. This modern phenomenon of cities in debt has to be studied in detail lest more metropolises go under like a sputtering old motor car.