There are about 21,000 retirees (not all living in Detroit) and about 9,700 city employees (not all living in Detroit). Other reports put the number of retirees at 24,000, with 16,000 of those over 65.
This is partly the result of Detroit's shrinking population, from about 1.8 million people in 1950 to about 700,000 today. Detroit's population loss has contributed to its losing almost half it's state revenue sharing since 2002, when it was $161 million a year higher.
The city has been cutting its workforce for years and the city budget has been reduced roughly 40 per cent in recent years, while continuing to run an annual deficit during 2008-2012, ranging from $128 million in 2008 to $57 million in 2011, according to city czar Orr's bankruptcy court declaration (p. 36).
But within the greater, decayed Detroit, there is a second, downtown Detroit that is, by many accounts, a vibrant and expanding city-within-the-city, supported in part by an estimated $11 billion in private investment (a billion of that from Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert). This Detroit looks on the bright side (and ignores things like bankruptcy), praising the private "development that's helped transform downtown's buildings, businesses, and riverfront into a lively and appealing urban center. Those dollars and many other ventures and commitments have been so numerous that we had to divide the information into five different fact sheets."
If things are so good, why is there a city czar dictator?
The short answer appears to be: because that's what Gov. Rick Snyder wanted. And the governor controlled the process, so it didn't really matter what the city government or the people of Detroit wanted.
The more complicated answer is that a supposed democratic process was manipulated to allow for the establishment of autocratic rule in Michigan.
The election of 2010 brought Republicans to power in the state, controlling both houses of the legislature and the governorship with predominantly tea-party type ideologues. They promptly strengthened Michigan's longstanding, little-used "emergency financial manager" law (Public Act 4), which went into effect March 16, 2011. The law gave Gov. Snyder unprecedented power to seize control of local communities, replacing their elected officials with a single, governor-appointed czar whose authority was unhampered by meaningful checks or balances.
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