Former local TV reporter Chris Hansen, hosted a Dateline special on the devastation that the city of  Detroit has suffered. Via Gawker.tv:

Chris Hansen traveled to Detroit, Michigan for a Dateline special that aired tonight on the state of what is probably America’s most desolate city. And in aerial footage—devastation porn at its best—Detroit’s grim plight was revealed. Video inside.

“Today, from the air, parts of Detroit look like a war zone,” Hansen said in a voiceover near the beginning of the special, before he listed some of the most shocking facts about the city’s current state—the population is less than half of what it was decades ago; there are 400 liquor stores there, but only eight supermarkets—all while panning shots of the consequences of its deterioration flashed on the screen.

However, they really don’t mention that most of Detroit’s problems are a direct result of a continuous 50 year regimen of liberal Democrat policies. Even worse is the fact that Detroit’s current leadership is really not interested in changing direction.

While you watch this video remember what Lyndon B. Johnson said about in his Great Society speech (at the University of Michigan) in 1964:

Many of you will live to see the day, perhaps 50 years from now, when there will be 400 million Americans — four-fifths of them in urban areas. In the remainder of this century urban population will double, city land will double, and we will have to build homes, highways, and facilities equal to all those built since this country was first settled. So in the next 40 years we must re-build the entire urban United States.

Aristotle said: “Men come together in cities in order to live, but they remain together in order to live the good life.” It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today.

The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. Open land is vanishing and old landmarks are violated.

Worst of all expansion is eroding the precious and time honored values of community with neighbors and communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference.

As someone who has lived most of my life in this area, I would be thrilled to see Detroit turn the corner. However, to do so, is going to require a complete move away from the Progressive era thinking that has crippled Detroit and embrace a conservative, free market approach to solving problems facing the city.

Otherwise, by applying the same Liberal Democrat policies Detroit has endured over the last 50 years, Detroit will get the same results.