Can't Forget the Motor City

There'll be singing, swaying, and records playing
Dancing in the streets

It's pretty astonishing when you think about it, but here it is: Detroit is bankrupt.

Once the very symbol of American industrial might, Detroit became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy Thursday, its finances ravaged and its neighborhoods hollowed out by a long, slow decline in population and auto manufacturing.

The filing, which had been feared for months, put the city on an uncertain course that could mean laying off municipal employees, selling off assets, raising fees and scaling back basic services such as trash collection and snow plowing, which have already been slashed.

You have to wonder what they could sell, and what the market would be. It's certainly not real estate, as this depressing post from Powerline reminds us -- below is just one of many pictures of blight and ruin:

That house was once a magnificent place. But right now, the engine of midcentury American commerce is something out of Ozymandias.

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

It doesn't matter what you wear, just as long as you are there.