[_delirium]

High taxes, strong unions, etc. apply to places like Massachusetts and California as well, and they don't seem to have the same kind of troubles Detroit has.

I'd chalk most of Detroit's problems up to the post-industrial malaise that affected Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Gary, etc. as well, i.e. cities built around industrial-age factory sectors that turned out to have their eggs in the wrong baskets for the 21st century. Factory towns in right-to-work states didn't generally weather the transition any better-- South Carolina is littered with ghost towns that were formerly supported by the textile mills, and the state's economy never really recovered from their departure (it's now the country's fourth-poorest state, worse off than Michigan).