THE Detroit Thread (merged)

patience · **Joined:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 1:00 am **Posts:** 2872

GM hasn't been unduly influenced by engineering at least since the mid 1970's, that I personally experienced. The Board is made up of all money people, and it is a top-down organization. If an employee does not think so, they will be quickly enlightened. Read John DeLorean's old book, "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, for insight into how and when the accountants took over the boardroom from the car people. Been going downhill since then, but as I posted elsewhere, it took them about 30 years to squander all the money they had and all they could borrow. No sympathy for them on my part.

Yeah, planned obsolescence is the business model, along with selling all the BS accessories that the market will bear, and do it by attacking the self esteem of the customer, like they do with toothpaste and other toiletries, clothes, on and on. See Vance Packard's old book, "The Status Seekers", about marketing to blue collar people.

Personally, I want to drive something that has better survivability than a "Smartcar", and don't relish the idea of being in a crash with several gallons of sulfuric acid, either. I'll take my bike, before that, the least crashworthy of all.

Plantagenet · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:04 pm

Novus wrote:

Detroit could only save itself if they can make a fuel efficient auto's or electric cars that don't cost $50,000+.

Even if Detroit had cheap, fuel-efficient cars people wouldn't buy them right now. People have stopped buying the hybrids now that oil is cheap again. Check out the actual numbers........sales of the Prius have collapsed worse then the sales of other kinds of cars.

If GM and Chrysler (and their government overlords) have any brains, they'll put together line-ups of cars that go from small to SUV-size, to maximize sales and profits. As oil prices go higher, people will shift voluntarily to the smaller cars.

Plantagenet · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:09 pm

The_Toecutter wrote:

It seems to me the Volt is part of a greenwashing campaign to take critiscism off of GM. The engineers were given such narrow constraints to design the car with(netting a drag coefficient similar to a Prius, which is about matched by a 1921 Rumpler...). Cars are supposed to be designed by the engineers, not the accountants and PR groupies, and even after its death, GM still hasn't learned this.

Exactly right.....and its going to get worse. The next generation of GM cars will be 100% funded by the government......that means those cars will be designed by the auto geniuses in the Obama administration and Congress.

Congress and Obama design a car!!!!!

mattduke · **Joined:** Fri Oct 28, 2005 12:00 am **Posts:** 2579

Detroit is gone. Federal Reserve inflation destroyed it. link

Troyboy1208 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:02 am

wow thats incredible. Houses are worth less than cars!

Jotapay · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:16 am

They have been destroyed by vandalism in most cases, I imagine. The homes that are inhabited have shells next to them, which depresses prices of habitable homes.

Escapist · **Joined:** Sun May 31, 2009 2:16 pm **Posts:** 13

I think the material of making the houses costs more then 6000$

jasonraymondson · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:02 pm

craigslist ads for detroit are still pretty well up there

http://detroit.craigslist.org/rea/

5 bath here for under 6000.00
http://www.trulia.com/for_sale/Detroit, ... _sort/7_p/
The funny thing, why the hell does it have 5 bathrooms when it has zero bedrooms?

Here is a nice little home for 12,500
http://www.trulia.com/property/10323765 ... t-MI-48235

Here is a street view of some of these great 6000 dollar homes
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 19.93,,0,5

jasonraymondson · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:15 pm

Wow look at this ad

http://detroit.craigslist.org/reo/1223223406.html

Here is a beauty for around $2000.00
http://detroit.craigslist.org/reo/1223206729.html

Ache · **Joined:** Sat Apr 23, 2005 12:00 am **Posts:** 312

NYTimes

Quote:

One night a little over a year ago, crossing Woodward Avenue, I crashed my bicycle. As I flew head over heels across Detroit’s main boulevard, I thought, well, in any other town, I’d be hitting a car right about now. But this being the Motor City, the street was deserted, completely motor-free.

While bike enthusiasts in most urban areas continue to have to fight for their place on the streets, Detroit has the potential to become a new bicycle utopia. It’s a town just waiting to be taken. With well less than half its peak population, and free of anything resembling a hill, the city and its miles and miles of streets lie open and empty, beckoning. And lately, whether it’s because of the economy or the price of gas or just because it’s a nice thing to do, there are a lot more bikers out riding.

perdition79 · **Posted:** Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:06 pm

Detroit is perfect for bicycles, now that it's completely devoid of commerce and population. lol.

deMolay · **Joined:** Sun Sep 04, 2005 12:00 am **Posts:** 2058

http://almartinraw.com/public/column417.html

Novus · **Joined:** Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:00 am **Posts:** 1948

Looks like Detroit took a turn for the worse after GM and Chrysler went bankrupt. No water, or electricity, entire blocks bulldozed, barbwire roadblocks, private military, and mini dictatorships. Sounds like the Gaza strip in Palestine. How long before the people decide life is not worth living and take take up suicide bombing like they did in Gaza.

OilFinder2 · **Posted:** Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:15 pm

Detroit has been going downhill for 50 years or more. The bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler had nothing to do with it.

pstarr · **Posted:** Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:22 pm

OilFinder2 wrote:

Detroit has been going downhill for 50 years or more. The bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler had nothing to do with it.

You think not? You are clueless.

The demise of the American auto business and the industrial heartland all began in the 1960's and early 1970's with the recognition that it cost money to protect the worker and the environment from industrial pollution. These big dirty cities, their hapless labor forces and their smokestack industries migrated to Japan and then China. And guess what?

The pollution has come home to roost. In your lungs, reproductive organs, cells, and unhappy genes.

THE Detroit Thread (merged)

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