Will Hong Kong Become Detroit?

Detroit recently declared bankruptcy, for which it attracted global attention. Detroit used to be the world’s biggest car manufacturing city. In the ’50s, its population reached nearly 2 million and it was the fifth-largest city in the United States. However, its population at the moment has dropped to 700,000. With all its citizens fleeing, Detroit feels like a haunted city.

The three largest car manufacturers, GM, Ford and Chrysler, closed their manufacturing units in Detroit one after another from 2006 to 2010. When people failed to secure a job in the city, they migrated elsewhere.

Some think that Detroit’s failure is due to over-reliance on one single industry. However, that is not the full reality: The car manufacturing industry in the United States has already recovered this year, but the real issue is that companies no longer use Detroit as their manufacturing base.

The main reason for Detroit’s failure is the many unforgivable mistakes that the municipal government committed over the years, especially its inability to handle the visible conflicts between different races and social classes.

The car manufacturing industry employs many workers. However, in the ‘50s and ’60s, the United States suffered from serious racial discrimination problems. Well-paid jobs were given to whites, while blacks could only work at labor-intensive and unattractive jobs with fewer benefits. The conflicts between races and social classes fused together to create great tension in Detroit.

In 1967, huge racial clashes broke out there, causing 43 deaths and thousands of injuries. The scarred and horrified middle class and the rich moved outside of Detroit, resulting in a loss of valuable human resources. On the other hand, the black community, who lived in dire conditions, expressed their frustration through committing crimes. As a result, the city’s safety and reputation worsened, resulting in a vicious cycle from which it could not escape. Detroit’s government has not been able to restore social order in the city since that time: Detroit’s murder rate and rape rate keep ranking high in the United States, while white people gradually moved away, diverting their investment and technology, making job hunting for blacks even more difficult. The unemployed blacks started relying heavily on Social Security. Currently, blacks make up 80 percent of the city’s population, and two-thirds of the overall population depends on Social Security and pensions. Only one-third of the population works. The number of people who can contribute to society is decreasing, while the number of dependents is increasing. No matter who is elected as mayor, the city is doomed.

Currently, 40 percent of street lights are “blind” and only one third of ambulances are workable. It takes one hour for an ambulance to respond to a citizen’s call. Over 90 percent of crime cases are unsolved. Prisons are overcrowded to such an extent that they need to release criminals early to make space for new ones. Detroit has indeed become a “failed city”; investors have lost all hope for it. It has been said that people are selling entire buildings for a single U.S. dollar in order to stop paying taxes and repairing the building.

Hong Kong residents may be shocked by the news, thinking that this will not happen in their city. However, there are already some omens that if not handled well, Hong Kong could also fall into decline. For example: lack of focus on economic development, stigmas which consider talking about the gross domestic product to be politically incorrect and the idea that conservation has to come before economic development, so that the Northeastern New Territories Development Plan will be delayed forever. We hate the rich and ignore the social functions of investors upon whom we are imposing heavy taxes to prohibit their investment. We emphasize “localism”: For the inconvenience of a few “locals,” we have become so irrational that we do not welcome investors and visitors from mainland China. Out of consideration for local benefits, we reject overseas students and overseas talent, leading to a lack of competitiveness in Hong Kong. Populism has become our principle; we only focus on nearsighted benefits, throwing the long-term consequences of our actions to the back of our minds. We only talk about principles, disregarding feasibility and reality and the heavy costs that our society has to bear. If we don’t think about consequences when we make decisions, what kinds of things are impossible?