More police in Detroit? Council says no
With a 7-2 vote, Detroit City Council rejected putting on the ballot a tax hike to raise about $56 million a year.
State does nothing as Historic Highland Park school is gutted by thieves
Part one of a continuing series on abandoned buildings. More than 60,000 vacant buildings are scattered across Detroit and Highland Park, driving down property values and attracting crime, rodents and fires. This is the story of one of those buildings. Neighbors tried their best. They circled the historic, sprawling school in Highland Park to keep out […]
Virtual Tour: State-controlled Highland Park school coming undone
Tax hike in Detroit? Council considers plan to put police protection on ballot
Detroit City Council declined to vote on whether residents should have the opportunity to vote on raising taxes to put more cops on the streets, saying the police department needs to provide a more thorough plan. Council members said they want to ensure the roughly $56 millon that would be raised from a tax hike […]
Detroit, Hamtramck consider sharing fire services
Hamtramck and Detroit are exploring a relationship to share fire services at a time when both communities are cutting public safety to fill budget gaps. “The financial realities force us to think outside the box,” Hamtramck City Manager Nervus Nazarko told Detroit City Council this morning. “We would support anything that would make financial sense […]
Media: Be scared of Detroit
Scared yet? If you’re white and live in the suburbs, you’re the target of sensational media accounts of two teens killed in Detroit last week. For the blood-thirsty media hoping to squeeze some pennies from a parent’s worst nightmare, it was the perfect story: Two white teenagers from Westland go missing after visiting a relative […]
Packard Plant fires become big problem
Two women in their 50s rummaged through the sprawling Packard Plant for scorched wood to use for an art project. They didn’t have to look far. As the pair sifted through the debris Wednesday, a fire quietly burned inside one of the factory’s buildings, sending smoke into the sky. Not far away, a trio of […]
Is Detroit’s population loss bottoming out?
The unprecedented exodus from Detroit in the past decade is slowing down, a sign that efforts to draw new residents is working, the Associated Press reports. Detroit shocked the nation when the decennial Census showed the city lost 25% of its population, which dropped to 714,000. It’s unclear what caused the slowdown, but officials in […]
Detroit photographer depicts life as a Detroit firefighter
Few photographers capture life in Detroit quite like Brian Day. His exquisite attention to the interaction between light and dark plays out in dramatic, absorbing images of cityscapes, Detroiters and their neighborhoods. The images are sincere, poignant and moving. Now some of his most striking images are on display at CNN. They depict heart-wrenching moments in […]
Detroit’s thug cops could learn a lot from WSU police
By Steve Neavling While crime continues to batter Detroit neighborhoods, Midtown has managed to reduce crime and increase its population. Crime in the gentrified entertainment and university hub has fallen by more than a third since 2008, the Free Press reported today. Authorities credit the success on a collaborative effort with local police and crime experts to […]