TORONTO – Detroit became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy Thursday.
The city’s finances are ravaged, its neighbourhoods hollowed out by a long, slow decline in population and auto manufacturing that once made it the very symbol of American industrial might.
Here’s a “by the numbers” look at the decline of Michigan’s largest metropolitan.
$18 billion – The estimated amount of debt facing Detroit
$380,000,000 – Detroit’s estimated budget deficit for this year alone
2009 – The year the auto industry collapsed along with the economy as a whole
700,000 – The current population of Detroit, according to a 2010 census. The city lost a quarter-million residents between 2000 and 2010. At its peak in 1950, the city housed over 1.8 million people.
IN PHOTOS: 8 haunting images of Detroit’s abandoned buildings
60 – Per cent of all children in Detroit who live in poverty, according to a recently released report from Data Driven Detroit
78,000 – The number of buildings that are said to be abandoned
33,500 – Estimated number of empty homes in Detroit
91,000 – Approximate number of vacant residential lots in the city
18 –Unemployment rate in Detroit, a number that is twice as high as the nation’s capital
40 – Per cent of Detroit’s street light that don’t work
BY THE NUMBERS: The decline of Detroit
$26,000 – Median household income in the city
$1 – The asking price for some homes in Detroit back in 2012, according to Business Insider
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