It was 2008 when the “mortgage crisis” broke on the news. Of course, it had been brewing well before that. At the base of the crisis which rocked the global economy and all but tanked the U.S. economy was deregulation of the financial and insurance industry, and the fact that land transfers lie at the base of much of our financial system. It is the “real” asset behind (or underneath) economies small and large. I was horrified at what emerged in Detroit. As the housing market crashed, the banks were selling whole blocks of houses to those with the money for $10,000 a house. Peoples homes, and life assets evaporated before their eyes, and Detroit became one of the first cities (and a cautionary tale) for cities in debt across the nation. Eventually, city management was turned over to “professional” private managers (for a price). Arising out of that catastrophe was another one – people losing access to water on a broad scale.

Across the nation, the events in Detroit are a ready meme of (non-white) “takers”, driving a great city into the ground because they refused to pay their (water) bills. While this ready mythology reinforces the racism that is arising out of the ground like Methuselah plants, it is a lie and misrepresentation on virtually every count. This article expresses some of the complexity of the problem, but a lot of the absentee owners are the monied opportunists who bought up Detroit real estate at the constructed fire sale that divested millions of average citizens and communities of virtually everything they had – including their dreams.