Once the nation’s 4th largest metropolis, the City of Detroit has filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
The city is said to have over 18 billion dollars in debt that it can not pay due to population flight, mismanagement, and loss of tax revenue. According to The Detroit Free Press at freep.com, the filing will begin a 30 day-90 day process to discover whether it can truly declare bankruptcy officially, and to determine claimants who might be entitled to the city’s limited settlement resources.
Once the Automobile Capitol of America and home to the Motown Sound, as well as a strong hip-hop scene, Detroit has experienced population flight at an unforeseen rate shrinking from a populous of over 2 million to barely 700,000 residents.
“The fiscal realities confronting Detroit have been ignored for too long. I’m making this tough decision so the people of Detroit will have the basic services they deserve and so we can start to put Detroit on a solid financial footing that will allow it to grow and prosper in the future,” said Michigan Governor, Rick Snyder. “This is a difficult step, but the only viable option to address a problem that has been six decades in the making.”
Rap artists have been responding to the filing on Twitter largely by retweeting the story as run on news sites. However, Slaughterhouse member and long-standing member of Detroit’s hip-hop community, Royce Da 5’9″ stated: My city has seen many lows and many highs.. I’m proud to represent Detroit no matter the financial status..
Detroit’s bankruptcy filing is the largest municipal filing in U.S. history.