And so the City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy.
According to the Wall Street Journal, public services in the city have declined to where it now takes 58 minutes, on average, for police to respond. And it has one of the highest violent crimes rates in the country.
One third of the city’s ambulances and 40% of it’s streetlights don’t work.
Let’s see, who can we blame? Hmm.
It may not be so easy to find one person or party to rake over the coals because the city’s decline has been more than half a century in the making. (Although the unions and the media will certainly try.)
In the 1950s, the city had 1.8 million residents. Today, only 700,000.
And there’s no way this shrinking population will be able to support the city’s $18,000,000,000 in debt. Detroit residents pay the highest income and proprty taxes in the state. And about 40% of the city’s income goes to fund pensions and other debt!
The Journal says that current city employees can expect cuts to their pensions. And retired employees might take cuts as well. A step many considered unthinkable.
Sadly, other large cities may not be far behind.
There are systemic issues here. No one person created the problems and no one person can fix it. It’s just too big.
What we’re seeing today is the culmination of more than fifty years of decisions made by tens of thousands of people. And now their decisions have spread – and they’re affecting millions in ways they never could have foreseen.
But what can the little guys like you and me do?
About Detroit? Probably nothing. But about our own lives – plenty.
One of the most amazing ‘lessons’ I’ve learned over the last ten years has been that if you just put one foot in front of the other, eventually you get where you set out to go.
Shocking, right?
Spend little time worrying about if that next step is going to ‘work’ or not. And instead, just do it.
I see people worrying about how to automate their online business before they can sell consistently one-on-one.
I see people worrying that they can’t move ahead because they don’t have enough testimonials. They worry people won’t buy.
I see people stuck because they’re not sure who should be their target market.
Well, remember this:
You need only know two things – your ultimate destination, and your very next step.
You can’t know for sure if your next step will work or not. You can only control whether you take it or not.
And if your actions are wiser than the ones taken in Detroit over the years, your life and the lives of the people around you will slowly – and then rapidly – change. Eventually, you may also be affecting millions of people in ways you never imagined.
But for the good.
I’d love to hear your reaction. Click below and leave a comment.
Dov Gordon
