By Michael A. Fletcher
Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history Thursday afternoon, capping a long and spectacular decline that left the nation’s automaking capital bleeding residents and revenue, while rendering city services a mess.
A number of factors — most notably steep population and tax base falls — have been blamed on Detroit’s tumble toward insolvency. Detroit lost a quarter-million residents between 2000 and 2010. A population that in the 1950s reached 1.8 million is struggling to stay above 700,000. Much of the middle-class and scores of businesses also have fled Detroit, taking their tax dollars with them.
