Make Sure that Our Country Does Not Become Detroit

by Jim Wallis 01-06-2009

Yesterday, Barack Obama told the leaders of the Congress that the economy is very bad and getting worse. The president-elect’s words of warning about the future of the economy is already a present reality for many Americans. The challenge for our incoming president will be to make sure that our country does not become Detroit.

Detroit is my hometown. Over Christmas, I spent some time there with my family. The painful signs of decay are deepening — even from the last time I was there just months ago. For a long time the cracks of the city were only noticeable to a native, but now even the casual visitor can see the signs that the city is literally falling apart. My hometown, with a metropolitan population of over 4 million, can no longer sustain a daily newspaper. The Detroit Free Press will soon cut home delivery to Thursday, Friday, and Sunday only. Abbreviated reporting will be available the rest of the week at select newsstands and online. Advertisers have followed jobs in fleeing the state, leaving a ghost town and ghost state in its wake. And if the automakers begin to fall, of course, everything will get much worse.

A report in November showed that unemployment rose in 364 out of 369 major metropolitan areas in our country, with Detroit leading the country with an unemployment rate of over 9.5 percent. Only 10 years ago, the city’s unemployment rate was 3.9 percent. Detroit has seen hard times before as many areas of the country have, but things look like they will get worse before they get better.

My brother is the COO for the largest non-profit service provider in the city. His family’s home is now worth less than their mortgage — an experience now common to many Detroit area homeowners. His next door neighbors purchased their home for $200,000 just a few years ago, and the house sold last month for $35,000. Foreclosures are on every block, and others have abandoned their homes and their mortgages, leaving behind lower property values and boarded up windows.

FDR, unable to walk on his own, inspired hope to Americans as he spoke of our country as a sick patient in need of care. The president-elect yesterday said,

Right now, the most important task for us is to stabilize the patient. The economy is badly damaged –- it is very sick. So we have to take whatever steps are required to make sure that it is stabilized.

I urge our lawmakers to move quickly and responsibly for the good of the patient. The stimulus package that has been proposed has the potential to “break the momentum of the recession.” But with this large expenditure also comes an opportunity to unprecedented transparency and accountability. The new Congress should ensure that the bill is made easy to understand, track, and search online. And I pray that my new hometown can put aside its bitter habits of partisan blaming and attacking, and lawmakers will decide together to do the best thing for the country.

Categories: Economics

Tags: accountability, auto, automakers, Barack Obama, car, Detroit, Economics, economy special focus, employment, Family, Foreclosures, mortgages, recession, service, unemployment

surprisedbyjoy

As a resident of Michigan (west MI, however, not Detroit), the recession not just knocking at our front doors, it's an unwelcome guest that's been squatting in our guest rooms for a few years now. Our economy has been suffering for a long time and while I fear what comes next, I hold out hope that we will get through whatever it will be.

Us Michiganders may be faltering, but we're strong (it's all that snow). I am proud to be a resident of "the mitten" and hope that the disease of Detroit is not only kept from spreading, but can be healed through smart policies and hard work.

Thanks for all your writing, Jim. I saw you speak at Calvin College this past fall (I live in Grand Rapids) and have read "The Great Awakening" and feel so blessed to have you spearheading Sojo and having a voice in our world. God Bless you and your family.

carlcopas

A very thoughtful response, juris. I appreciate it.

"As someone who wants to be a careful thinker and shape-er of public, especially Christian, opinion"

Yes, this is key isn't it? I suppose this should be accompanied by much prayer for wisdom and discernment.

xfree9

I stand corrected. Main point shouldn't be altered, bu you are correct.

spelliott

Mr. Wallice - I cringed when I saw this headline. I too am a Michigan native, I've found that many people both inside and outside of Michigan negatively equate Detroit with two things: poverty and African-Americans. And I've heard the adage, "No one wants their city to end up like Detroit". Why? Because it is a proudly African-American majority city? Because many people there struggle with poverty, while suburbanites sleep in their 4000 square foot mansions and worry about property values declining as more middle-class people of color make the same move of out the city that their parents did 40 years ago? I thought we as Christians were supposed be allies with the poor and the downtrodden, not to hold point to them with a cautionary tale of what not to become.

jurisnaturalist

I can accept that there is truth in this. Thank you. I would merely point out that this explanation strengthens any argument against using progressive or New Deal arguments in articulating an ideal.
Their methods may have been strategical compromises - which I am willing to accept. My main concern today is that the ideal is seldom articulated or understood.
Without the ideal, it is too easy to compromise in the wrong direction, pulling us further from where we want to go. I have no wisdom concerning particulars of strategy. That sort of thing is best left to political scientists and activists. As someone who wants to be a careful thinker and shape-er of public, especially Christian, opinion I find it more crucial to spend my time on the ideal.
All of the arguments against me which contend "that can never be possible" miss this point about my purpose. They also are a bit short-sighted. "Just prior to WWI every single European country had a monarch. Twenty years later the very idea of monarchy was regarded as ridiculous." (Lant Pritchett, Harvard Economist)
Public opinion changes, often swiftly, and often on a whim, but usually in response to a well articulated argument.

carlcopas

Hmmm. Gold standard, Fed Reserve . . . I'm waiting for the Rothschilds and the Illuminati to enter the picture.

carlcopas

"The Progressive Era was a bunch of goodie-two-shoes imposing their moral will on others through law instead of owning up to the full responsibility for the least of these."

That's only true of some, maybe even just a few, progressives. Many others were scared to death of a radical revolution, and thought, like European centrists, that the only way to head off an uprising was to throw enough crumbs to the working class and the poor to relieve some of the growing dissent. After all, the Socialist Party grew exponentially in the first two decades fo the 20th century, as did radical labor untions such as the IWW. It must be said that the progressive strategy worked--the political left has never been as strong as it was during the progressive era.

FDR's New Deal was not dissimilar. FDR feared that, if the government didn't act, the US would head in the direction either of radical rightism (Nazism) or leftism (Bolshevism/communism). Much of the New Deal, particularly employment programs such as the WPA, along with Social Security, were designed to head off radicalism.

jurisnaturalist

Excellent point. I stand corrected.
I think subsidization of roads (interstates especially) and corruption in city governments have also contributed to sprawl. Also, increases in overall wealth have contributed to sprawl. Which is to say, I don't think sprawl is altogether a bad thing. Sprawl with empty city centers may be something different. I don't know anything about Columbus, so you will have to tell me if this is the case or not there.
Rent control did have a lot to do with the housing devastation of NYC. I've seen photos of neighborhoods after rent control, and neighborhoods in Hiroshima after the Atom bomb went off. They are hard to tell apart.
The key is that prices communicate information, and any kind of price control interferes with that communication flow resulting in misallocation of resources.
NS

carlcopas

"Essenes were practically Amish living in relative exclusion."
Essenes were not nonviolent. They were waiting for the Messiah, who would lead them to a bloody overthrow of their Roman overlords.

BuckeyeDon

Rent control causes sprawl? Then what causes sprawl in metro areas that have never seen rent control? I may be wrong, but I don't think Columbus, Ohio, has any rent control laws on the books, yet we are rather severely burdened with sprawl.

Sprawl--and the resulting urban decay--are caused by many factors. I don't think you can put the blame on rent controls alone.

ando

Ah, I am so sorry. Now, please let me know what I should be ashamed
of. Just because you don't like what I say, I'm rude?! Sorry, it's
called free speech. Given to us by the government.

Andy Anderson

Quoting Disqus <>:

Guest

"Give US this day OUR daily bread. What if we practiced living living with "enough"- and sharing the rest with those who didn't have enough? Where are there economists working on that model?"

Well of course , but Americans in general are pretty good at giving to help others already . I like to see the green industry come alive with clean renewable energy and providing jobs . Till then oil helps us be able to give to others .
Actually I saw this neat solar panel that hung outside a window of a house . It powered a space heater . Kind of cool . But say all new homes being built received a tax break to the builders and buyers for purchasing homes with these equiped or something relevant to saving and clean energy .
Soon those solar panels would be mass produced , that should bring down the prices and encourgage development hopefully . I think that is what is needed here , government not hindering capitalism , capitalism being directed and supported by government in some ways with tax incentives to lead the way to a better world for all concerned .

NMRod

Actually Coughlin, leader of the "Christian" National Front, by 1936 was denouncing Roosevelt in his radio tirades as a communist, and paradoxically, a tool of international Jewish banker conspiracies.

kevin47

He was a Catholic fascist sympathetic to FDR (to say the least), until he moved further left. But yes, in terms of influence, Wallis is on a different plane, at the moment.

The bull is a bit creepy. I've always thought so.

xfree9

Perhaps you should check out my recent blog post on human action and non-aggression: www.liveloud.net

xfree9

This is unfounded and completely rude. You should be ashamed of yourself, and you should certainly educate yourself about economics.

Capitalists take risks which have consequences, many of which are unintended. Unfortunately, with capitalism, they pay for their own mistakes much (but not all) of the time. With the State, rarely does the State itself suffer, but it is the people upon which it initially intended to "do good." Read the C.S. Lewis quote I posted earlier on this set of comments.

xfree9

"I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't be better off with a President who said "No" most of the time."

Stop wondering. YES, it would be better! Self-restraint is probably more crucial to those in power.

jurisnaturalist

Why did people flee the big cities to create the Urban Sprawl? Was it just because they had cheap cars? Why not have a car, and live in town?
Rent control caused the price of housing to be artificially low. A landlord who might have rented for a family if they were willing to pay more would prefer to rent to an old lady who lived alone, since he was not allowed to differentiate through prices. It became harder and harder for families to find housing in the city. Also, it became more costly to maintain properties than it was worth to landlords, so they started torching them for the insurance money. This subject is easy to research, there's lots out there on it. Price controls always cause damage.
NS

jurisnaturalist

The key is whether people play nice selflessly or selfishly. You are right to point out that the believers in Acts acted akin to socialists. They truly were one in Spirit, because they were all in submission to One Spirit. Unbelievers are utterly incapable of this.
Unregenerate men can only get long if it is in each of their own self-interests. They play nice because it pays to do so.
Christians play nice because they are new creatures in Christ. They play nice even when it requires sacrifice. They cannot be said to be doing this for a reward because if they have accepted Christ they already have their reward in full.

When has it been the case that sacrificial action by Christians has been beneficial to mankind? This cannot be your question.
You question must be: when has liberalization of markets and competition free from regulation and the influence of government been beneficial to mankind? 200 years ago the richest man in the world had a quality of life equivalent to most inhabitants of the third world today. What has made the difference? Free trade. Specialization. Technology.
You say all is doomed to failure. I'm not so sure. That certainly is one eschatological perspective, one which I have rejected and I am afraid shapes the way many people think about these issues. But perhaps it is the case that things will continuously get better and better until Jesus returns, and then He will demonstrate His glory by destroying all of it - the very best man can do - in an instant. Either way, who are we, as Christians, to prohibit the unregenerate from doing the best they can on their own by tying their hands with regulations?
NS

ando

"Every good thing the state tries to do has an unintended consequence where someone else has to pay."

Unlike your beloved Capitalists and their love of mammon.