[danielweber]

The Free Press had a long-form history about Detroit's mistakes and missed opportunities.

http://www.freep.com/interactive/article/20130915/NEWS01/130...

I like to point out "Pension officials handed out about $1 billion in bonuses from the city’s two pension funds to retirees and active city workers from 1985 to 2008" but there's a lot of other stuff in there.

Detroit had some trouble baked into the cards back in the 1950's, when they were a geographically big city with corresponding fixed costs that would have trouble dealing with any decline in population, but it didn't have to be anywhere near as bad as it was.