"In terms of the sorts of things that might be of interest to Hacker News, there's not much point to resurrecting Detroit..." Kindly don't chop important words off of quotes, please.

It was never a startup hub, it was never a computer programming tech hub, it was full of the sort of Suits that that startup culture is in large part a reaction against, it is bizarre to insist on trying to turn Detroit into some sort of startup hub when there's one radically further along and tied to a world-class University just an hour west. If you want to resurrect it because it's your home, or because you feel for the people who live there, or because you have other interests that are relevant, go nuts. But I don't get Hacker New's obsession with the topic. A few articles about a case study of a modern city in major decline is interesting from a sociology perspective, but it gets a lot more attention than I'd expect from that.

Cities have risen and fallen before. Part of the creative destruction of the last few decades involved wealth and power disappearing from Detroit and growing in Silicon Valley. I understand for Detroiters the sentimental value of Detroit, but there's no need for economic activity to happen in Detroit or in any other particular place so long as it happens and happens productively. In fact, it may be against this country's interests for otherwise useful and productive resources to be misdirected towards trying to rebuild failed cities like Detroit when they could be more productively invested elsewhere.

People see a city like Detroit turn to ruins and think this is terrible, this needs to be a thriving city again. No, really as long as we have more prosperity elsewhere, Detroit can stay in ruins.

This has got to be the most ignorant response of the day. One, have you ever been to Detroit. And two, have you ever heard of this thing called capitalism? Last I checked, as natural born Americans, we've got the right to do what we want, where we want to do it.

Please, do take a moment to explain to me how it would be in anyone's best interest to just "let" Detroit die? (Assuming it was actually near death) Also, help me understand how building resources in and around Detroit would affect your resources wherever you are (in the Valley)?

By the way, you might want to check the data before you go trying to throw anyone under the bus, as Detroit... the dead city that you refer to. Yeah, it's a big part of what gave Michigan the lead in technology hiring in 2010.

http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2011/10/michigan_was... *http://www.freep.com/article/20111006/BUSINESS06/110060525/M...

"And two, have you ever heard of this thing called capitalism? Last I checked, as natural born Americans, we've got the right to do what we want, where we want to do it."

I'm all for that. It's too bad Detroit needed the government to bail out and nationalize two of its biggest employers--I assume you're as opposed to that as I am, being such a capitalist and all.

As long as you're willing to let the market do as it will I really don't have any disagreement with you. Unfortunately, most of this "rebuilding Detroit", starting with saving GM and Chrysler, has the heavy hand of government involved. And as a citizen and taxpayer, I have every right to say the federal government shouldn't go out of its way to save Detroit. The country can do fine without it. In fact, for what it's worth the country seems to be manufacturing as many cars as ever, and creating lots of jobs. It's no skin off my back that the jobs are in southern right-to-work states, or that the cars are Toyotas, Hondas and Fords rather than GM's and Chryslers. (Or rather, it shouldn't matter, except our tax money was used to nationalize GM and Chrysler.)

Thriving and successful cities don't have population drops similar to those caused by hurricanes: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/us/23detroit.html