I think a big aspect that ultimately caused the rise and fall of Detroit was its population decline. Although Detroit was one of the biggest cities in the early 20th Century with a booming automobile industry, I think the biggest hinderance that caused Detroit to not continue to grow was the mass exodus of people from Detroit to other cities. Detroit had the potential to be a major city, on the like of Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago, but it soon started its steep decline as its backbone, the automobile industry, deteriorated.

Additionally, a thought I had while reading the article was that the government had the chance to help Detroit. The government has bailed out the entire financial industry during the Great Recession, so why couldn’t it produce a bailout, on a much smaller scale, to help the citizens of Detroit? It’s interesting to see which entities the government decides to help, especially their motivations to help one industry over an entire city.

Lastly, I wanted to relate the topic of climate change back to the population argument I brought before as that thought came up as well. As sea waters keep rising as entire cities by coastlines such as Miami are only doomed for total destruction and unsuitable for anyone to live in, I think it’s interesting to see which new cities will be on the rise as more people move inwards. Even New York might see the effects of rising sea levels that would cause our population of over 8 million to move inwards to cities like maybe Detroit?