NY Times columnist Jodi Wilgoren writes about the myriad problems plaguing Detroit:

Shrinking, Detroit Faces Fiscal Nightmare.

With the city facing a $389 million shortfall over three years and the threat of receivership, Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick announced this month that Detroit would soon lay off 686 people and eliminate 237 vacant jobs, cut employees’ pay 10 percent across the board, end overnight bus service and close the aquarium. That is just a start, as consultants consider cutting departments – like cultural affairs and the zoo, and health, transit and street lighting – and ponder new taxes on everything from alcohol to vacant land.

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So a dour mood has descended over a city that has been seeking a renaissance for more than a generation. The words people use to describe the situation are “cataclysmic,” “debilitating,” “monumental,” “dire” and “grave.”

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Causes of the crisis are complex, and, unsurprisingly, much debated, but the story starts with some staggering numbers. Having lost one million residents in a half century, Detroit is expected to see its population drop by 50,000 more in the next five years; 15,168 business have departed since 1972. New loft developments credited with revitalizing downtown are mainly filled with empty-nesters, not the building blocks of a healthy community; white flight has become bright flight, with families and people earning more than $50,000 a year leading the way out of town.

But the city’s payroll still has the 18,000 employees of a decade ago (after spiking to 21,000 in the late 1990’s), with 1.4 administrative employees for every 1,000 residents, far higher than the 1.0 median for major cities. Detroit, with antiquated technology like a 29-year-old payroll system, also spends more than most other cities on policing ($377 per capita, compared with a median of $221), garbage ($100 per capita versus Chicago’s $62 and Milwaukee’s $52) and other services.

Mayor Kwame Kilpattrick: “We’ve been a black eye on the landscape of America for too long,” he said in an interview. “I don’t want that stigma attached to me and my kids anymore.”

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