The Stupidity of Detroit

The City of Detroit has decided to proceed with demolition of Tiger Stadium in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood and they are moving rather rapidly to bring this historic stadium down. They are doing this even though there is a viable plan to restore Tiger Stadium to its Navin Field configuration and there aren't any other developers interested in doing anything else with the site.

Given the City of Detroit's track record for maintaining vacant property, the most likely outcome of this demolition is that Detroit will soon have one more large, empty parcel of land with overgrown weeds and trash that never gets picked up. Regardless of how one feels about the Navin Field plan, I seriously doubt any sober individual could say that this is a better alternative.

It was facts such as these that prompted Keith Olbermann to proclaim George W. Jackson of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation one of the "Worst Persons in the World" on his show yesterday.

There is currently demolition equipment at the site. It would appear that like this demolition will begin within the next 24 hours, in spite of appeals from U.S. Senator Carl Levin and others.

The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, Preservation Wayne and other are staging an event at the site this evening. There will be television news crews on hand. If you are available to come out this evening at 11 p.m., please do so.