Yahoo Finance 'Baby Iraq': The US City On Brink Of Collapse
An emergency financial manager, chosen to try to steer the US city of Detroit out of its fiscal crisis, is starting his first day in the job.
Kevyn Orr, whose contract will last between 12 and 16 months, said he hopes to help the city avoid bankruptcy and has pledged to be there "as long as it takes".
He was expecting to sit down with Mayor Dave Bing on Monday and meet with some City Council members.
Detroit is struggling beneath a $327m (£217m) budget deficit and more than $14bn (£9.3bn) in long-term debt.
Unemployment is twice the national average, and a quarter of a million people have left the city in the last decade.
Its population has halved since its heyday in the 1950s, and it has the highest crime rate in the US.
The city is being hollowed out, block by block. The decay and disintegration spreads over miles, but begins just a few streets from the city centre.
Less than a mile from downtown Detroit at the Black Bottom Barbershop, Cornell Young told Sky News the neighbourhood where he grew up was vanishing.
"Every time you come round there's another house gone. Look at the school it's closed. It's disappearing in front of my eyes. You blink and it's gone," he said.
The story is the same across this once expansive city. Empty homes are quickly stripped of anything valuable down to the copper wiring and pipes, and then often set alight.
Derrick Smith, 25, likened his neighbourhood to a "baby Iraq".
As he showed Sky News around and pointed to landmarks, he said: "A year and a half ago that was a school functional with cars in the parking lot, which was fenced up all the way around.
"It didn't look nothing like this, no graffiti, none of that, and those houses over there - none of that was burned up."
The city was once the fifth biggest in the US. It put the American Dream in motion, home to the greatest names in the US car industry.
Its decline began decades ago with the demise of the car industry, leading to massive population loss and chronic mismanagement.
The mass exodus continues today, with people fleeing a crime epidemic that spares nothing, not even vital life-saving services.
Ed Nadolski, senior lieutenant at Ladder 19 fire station, showed Sky News how thieves had broken in and plundered tools and safety equipment - but he said he could not blame the people for doing it.
"They're doing something out of necessity for themselves, this is how they survive and the people here are in survival mode like we're in a fire department in a city in survival mode," he explained.
"We're trying to do whatever means necessary to survive. You can't really blame them, but you're mad at them."
Detroit is also famous for Motown music, mastered by songwriter and producer Berry Gordy.
At the Motown Museum, the legendary Studio A is where stars like The Supremes, The Temptations and Smokey Robinson recorded some of their greatest hits.
Curator Allen Rawls told Sky News that many in the city were now facing a desperate struggle just to get by.
"That's the nature of survival. Those who may not have the opportunity because of whatever their circumstances still have the desire to survive," he said.
But Mr Rawls insists he remains optimistic and believes there are enough people committed to turning the city round.
At the moment Detroit has little more than hope.
It is not certain whether Mr Orr's emergency financial management can save its future. If it fails, the city faces the biggest municipal bankruptcy in the history of America.
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