http://www.csmonitor.com/patchworknation/csmstaff/2008/0708/in-affluent-michigan-a-firsthand-look-at-the-trickle-up-recession/
In affluent Michigan, a firsthand look at the trickle-up recession
Dante Chinni
Posted: 07.08.2008 / 7:51 AM EDT
STERLING HEIGHTS, MICH. – Since 1980, Macomb County has had almost a mythic quality in presidential races. The home of Detroit’s northern east side suburbs, the county has since become known as home of the “Reagan Democrats” – suburban swing voters who are crucial to winning Michigan.
In Patchwork Nation, Macomb County is one of those pivotal wealthy suburban locales, a “Monied ’Burb.” As the 2008 campaign kicks into high gear, the county may offer insight into the conditions other affluent areas are grappling with and what kinds of issues Barack Obama and John McCain will be discussing this week as they turn their attention to the economy.
Macomb is not a perfectly representative “Monied ’Burb,” of course. Like much of the area surrounding Detroit and the city’s slumping auto industry, it has taken a rough beating in the current economic downturn. Still, after spending last week in Macomb, the county may be a good example of the trickle-up recession, which could be a key issue this fall.
Macomb is a long, thin piece of land that runs from the Detroit border – Eight Mile Road – along Lake St. Claire up to 38 Mile Road. In the 1980s, the much-discussed Reagan Democrats were generally based in the south of the county near Detroit where the auto jobs were. The northern part was more rural and less suburban.
But in the past 20 years, the housing tracts have moved north, changing that calculus. The wealthier people and families have moved north, bringing the expensive malls and stores with them.
I know all of this firsthand. I grew up in Macomb, in the Reagan-Democrat burb of Warren and still have family there, though they have moved up the road to Sterling Heights.
What struck me about this trip home to see the folks was that the hard times have reached so far up into the county. The number of empty storefronts has climbed steadily along the “mile roads,” which mark the distance from downtown’s Campus Martius Park, like a ladder to the county’s more distant east side suburbs.
Some places in the south of the county even as high as 12 Mile Road are struggling; strip malls have lost good tenants to make way for dollar stores. But it was particularly surprising to see the number of empty storefronts at 15 Mile Road, 16 Mile Road, and beyond – along with a slew of “for sale” signs on homes.
At the corner of 15 Mile and Schoenherr Roads, an entire strip mall is all but empty. Just five years ago, a large, well-stocked supermarket anchored the row of stores, and the rest of the shops saw brisk business.
For Macomb, that point is the transitional area (the place changing from monied to economically shaky). Because this area has moved north quickly, the economy is likely to be a big issue for many who may not have been hit in the past. It’s one thing to read bad headlines or know a friend who is struggling, it is another to go to the corner and see “for lease” signs in the window of what was until recently your local bakery.
It could be easy to write off these changes as a result of the Detroit area’s woes, except that in the end it may signal something larger.
Economic crunches like the one the country is currently experiencing – one that affects housing, unemployment, gasoline prices – have a pattern. They start with the most vulnerable and work their way up. Few people are completely recessionproof. At some point, economic belt-tightening climbs the ladder, particularly when bad mortgages and high fuel prices collide.
None of this is to say, “As Macomb County goes….” The troubles in Macomb are unique and severe because of the auto industry’s woes. But if some of those problems are hitting other wealthy suburbs, even at a slower clip, then the trickle-up economic troubles of 2008 may be crucial issues to the voters in the “Monied ’Burbs.” That is something Senators Obama and McCain will be watching closely and then are likely to tailor their messages, and perhaps their economic plans, accordingly.
Those wealthy suburbs are the most populous and closely contested community type Patchwork Nation is following. And if the hard times and money concerns there climb high enough, fast enough, they will dramatically affect this election.
3 Responses to “In affluent Michigan, a firsthand look at the trickle-up recession”
Larry Says:
July 8th, 2008 at 2:39 pm EDT
I have been writing about this trickle up problem for several years. First to the Wall Street Journal and then others. The economic food chain is like the other food chain. As those perish below us we too will suffer. Not much as first then it gets into our pockets and then into our souls. We have allowed to many manufacturing jobs to be sent off shore. We not only lost those jobs we also lost the tax revenues that those jobs paid. THAT MEANS THAT THOSE ON UP THE FOOD CHAIN WILL HAVE TO PAY MORE. The small government argument that the Republicans love to spout totally fails in the light of poison food, toxic toys and tainted medicine that the world sends back to us when we give them our jobs. And that doesn’t even mention the fact that the products that were made in non polluting plants here were sent off shore so that they could pollute all they want. Too many of our top 1% believe that those below don’t matter to their physical and economic security. They need to think about sharing the streets, cities and states with people that have nothing to loose and care nothing about the lives of the “haves”. The 1% are going to run out of somewhere to hide. Sooner than you can say Wall Street is a cess pool.
Fred S. Says:
July 8th, 2008 at 3:57 pm EDT
Reagan patted the ‘democrats’ on the back while picking thier pocket. The transfer of wealth from the working class to wall street has been going full blast ever since. |
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