When a major American city has a crisis, the entire region can be impacted.

In the Michigan city of Ann Arbor, University of Michigan student Derek Draplin shares a few thoughts about Detroit’s recent bankruptcy.

…The debt problem is obviously the city’s next biggest problem. With nearly $19 billion in debt, Detroit struggles to pay pensions to its 21,000 retirees. $3.5 billion of the debt is owed to pension plans while another $5.7 billion is due to retiree health care packages. Unfortunately, the grim likelihood for many retirees is that pensions will be severely cut back. Orr has mentioned that his plan would give full payments towards pensions for the next six months and after that “there are going to have to be concessions.” As much as retirees hate to hear it (and they have the right to be angry), cuts and sacrifices will have to be made for the city of Detroit that put their personal livelihood at stake. …

As I stated above, Detroit’s underlying problem has been a lack of leadership that has been made up of corrupt liberal Democrats for the past 60 years. The babbling idiots who sit around and call themselves the “city council” have all failed at their jobs, having been directed by their liberal policies, mindsets, and ideologies. As Kurt Schlichter recently put it “liberalism is the locust of political ideologies; it will eat everything in sight then starve.” If the citizens of Detroit cannot open its eyes to this they will remain in ignorance of the truth; if this turns out to be the case, no hope for the redemption and renewal of the city would be in sight.

My only optimism for the city of Detroit is that I trust that Kevyn Orr is the right man for the job of fixing what is (hopefully) rock-bottom for the city; if this is the case, it’s only up from here. My message to Detroit is this: you can no longer afford to rely on the unsustainable economic policies of the blue party. They have only ballooned the public debt, making other civic improvements impossible. Their corruption and bribery has only bred more corruption and bribery. It is the city’s responsibility to right it’s wrongs but the state of Michigan, Governor Snyder, and Kevyn Orr are not your enemies, they are working to help.

Detroit is a resilient city with a prosperous and rich past; embrace that past and learn to conserve the best aspects of it. Put this mindset to work in policy and the blight of Detroit – and the Detroit bankruptcy – can be conquered.