Average police response times have reached 58 minutes, compared with a national average of 11 minutes. Its per capita violent crime rate is nearly triple that of Cleveland and St. Louis, and it has fewer than half as many functioning streetlights per square mile as those cities. And on and on.
But while Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has capably overseen Detroit’s march to Chapter 9, neither the state nor the federal government has evinced any inclination to provide meaningful financial assistance.
That’s a mistake. No one likes bailouts or the prospect of rewarding Detroit’s historic fiscal mismanagement. But apart from voting in elections, the 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs, and eventually Congress decided to help them.
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