This is so “Detroit”ish.
The speaker is a white businessman who grew up in Detroit and for whatever reason decided to move his software business into the city. His “All we care about is Police and Fire” protection is extremely self-centered and short sighted.
A viable big city is much more than Fire and Police (which are not unimportant)
Big cities also typically are involved (sometimes indirectly) in
– running the water and sewer systems
– enforcing building codes and zoning
– running courts
– operating parks and other recreation faciilties
– encouraging economic development
– running public transportation
– operating or regulating downtown parking facilities
– traffic planning and maintenance of traffic signals and street lights
– running public schools
– operating public libraries
– licensing pets and operating stray pet shelters
– running public health centers including food inspections
– collecting and disposing of garbage
It’s not enough that the city keep you from getting robbed in your parking lot. Living in a city – and especially RAISING A FAMILY in the city takes so much more. Business can’t just “skim the cream” of operating in a city and close their eyes to the rest of what a viable city relies on. A town of 10,000 on the plains of Kansas may not need some of the above, but Detroit is (or was) a large city.
Is that a tongue I see in your cheek?
Detroit isn’t supplying any of those services now – at least not the classic definitions. I can see the day where Detroit is a footnote in history books.
Not so much tongue in cheek as pointing out how far people’s expectations have fallen. Detroit is in the news because they are still fighting State control of the City – which could cause the State to pull all funding and City paychecks start bouncing this week. I would guess people in the Michigan National Guard are being told to be ready to be called up on short notice.
One possible outcome I could see would be dissolving Detroit and turning Wayne County into a regional Metro government. Wayne County has a population of about 1.8 million and less than half of that is the City of Detroit (the largest part of non-Detroit Wayne County is Dearborn and the down river communities along I75 down to Ohio.
Maybe that’s what Mr Malloy is being looked at to accomplish.
I can’t imagine Eric Holder not getting involved to stop that.