In the Industrial Midwest, the city
government of Detroit went into bankruptcy in July. Out in California, the city
governments of Stockton and San Bernardino entered bankruptcy proceedings in
2012. But the Detroit and California
bankruptcies, like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, are not alike. They suffer from
quite different ailments.
You can see the difference by comparing
their populations in the 1950 and 2010 Censuses. In 1950 Detroit, then the
nation’s fifth-largest city, had 1,849,568 people. In 2010 it had 713,777.
Stockton and San Bernardino were not much
more than small towns in 1950, with 70,853 and 63,058, respectively. Their
total population of 133,911 was only 7 percent the size of Detroit’s.
It’s different now. In 2010 Stockton had
291,707 people, and San Bernardino 209,924, for a combined total of 501,631.
That number is 70 percent of the 2010 total of Detroit. Lots of people moved out of Detroit. Lots of
people moved into Stockton and San Bernardino. These numbers are clues to these
cities’ different roads to bankruptcy….To Read More….
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