I heard the unions also contributed

Well, the unions were the reason the wages were as high as they got

Detroit is a long story. You'll see a lot of finger pointing depending who you ask. I'll focus on the arguments against the Unions.

The public employee unions racked up large pensions and obligations on the part of the city and coordinated to keep it under their control. The city didn't really invest very wisely or run very well either (the various public and private unions basically picked their bosses leading to corruption). /1

The Auto industry was militantly union. It worked for awhile, but they couldn't keep up with the R&D or low costs of the Japanese Manufacturers in the 70s and 80s. The Unions prevented wages going down or the automakers from offshoring. They were successful in pushing tariffs (like the Truck tax) but then the Japanese automakers just set up shop in the (mostly union-free) South. Engineers I talk to tell me the real issue with the unions was that they just weren't flexible in what they would allow to be built so the automakers couldn't readily adapt to market conditions. That's probably excuse-making on the side of management, but it is true Unions hate meddling with contracts and tend to make demands to hire more people or put people where they don't always make sense. /2

By any means, by the time the American auto industry woke up to the threat of the Japanese they were already very behind. The D3 went more-or-less collectively bankrupt in 2009 and got a bailout (sorta). But the city had lost it's tax base to a combination of capital flight (well-heeled workers for the auto industry prefer to live and work in the surrounding suburbs) and had massive obligations on it's hands and no way to pay them. The city itself went bankrupt in 2013. /3

Detroit is probably going to rise again. It's got history, spunk and cheap land (they'll basically give you a free house if you are willing to fix it up, though police response times were measured in hours the last time I was there, so do it at your own risk). I'm told it's kindling a small hipster scene that it protects carefully and the surrounding counties (like Macomb) are doing quite well. The D3 figured out outsourcing (mostly in Mexico) and now "American" cars often have more foreign parts than "Japanese" cars. /4/4

And that's the funny story about how Toyota became a Texas brand.

lol. so true.

I'm told Toyota actually moved it's California design facility to Texas to avoid the Californian taxes.

probably

But their marketing campaigns sure show a lot of Texas pride.

Not a bad call on their part, either.

Their trucks come standard with a sticker in the rear window that says 'Built here Lives here' with a texas flag

or some that say 'Born in Texas; Built by Texans'

(Corrected that first one. Whoops.)

Gotta know how to appeal to the locals.

I mean, kinda.

I prefer to deal with companies that are most based in Texas, myself.

The more locally you spend your money, the further your dollar goes.

not just wages but unions specifically

crowder has some stuff on Detroit

oh pratel went into it quite thoroughly

ya here in America if you want American made, Toyota is a good option

DIdnt realize that was a merican brand

Japanese company, cars sold her are manufactured here

Ah I see

Global supply chains make for weird realities.

It's hard to even say what "manufactured" means when parts are coming in from everywhere in different states of assembly

ya pratel check property tax rate in Detroit though

as far as cheap land goes

one could argue manufactured would be where the manufacturing plant is

Yah. They do tend to do final assembly in the US.

~2% tax. Seems normal to me.

for houses rathr than land

you can find many houses rated 40k with 1500 tax

1500$/Year?

the are incentivizing tearing all the houses down

yes

That does sound high for a house valued at 40k

To be fair, that's probably cheaper than fixing most of those houses.

woulldnt be worth buying and holding onto, here is one 10k listing 1400 tax