CH: Make New York City Detroit

Basically, make New York City sink to the level of Detroit. What would it take? What would it take to make New York City, probably one of the wealthiest cities on Earth, sink to the level of Detroit with the whole abandoned structures and massive poverty on display elsewhere? Is this even possible, or am I asking an ASB question?

The reason I ask this is because I wonder what determines the success of cities like New York City, and how bad things would have to be in order to kill it.
 
New York sank as far as it was going to by the end of the 1970s. It was at that time in many areas truly horrid. Not Detroit horrid, but not too far off. New York is too much a center for business not just in America but the whole world to sink that far.
 
New York sank as far as it was going to by the end of the 1970s. It was at that time in many areas truly horrid. Not Detroit horrid, but not too far off. New York is too much a center for business not just in America but the whole world to sink that far.

Well then how did it sink as low as it did in the 1970s? If it's a center of business, why did it crash so hard?
 
Well then how did it sink as low as it did in the 1970s? If it's a center of business, why did it crash so hard?

Union overkill, extraordinarily high crime rates caused by urban decay and unemployment more than anything. The Blackout in 1977 and the rioting and arson that resulted is commonly said to the nadir. The financial industry came back considerably in the 1980s, which was a big help for matters.
 
Union overkill, extraordinarily high crime rates caused by urban decay and unemployment more than anything. The Blackout in 1977 and the rioting and arson that resulted is commonly said to the nadir. The financial industry came back considerably in the 1980s, which was a big help for matters.

Interesting, to say the least.
 
The only way to get the kind of "Escape From New York" New York, you're gonna have to bring the rest of the nation and probably the world with it. As has been said, NYC is too much the center of the economic universe to make such a nosedive all on its own. Of course there are multiple ways in which the world can become such a craphole, the question is which one you prefer.
 
Some sort of chemical spill making large swaths of the city contaminated for decades maybe?

While outside the initial OP, I have to give you Internet points for creativity in a scenario that is sadly not as implausible as it may seem.
 
Union overkill, extraordinarily high crime rates caused by urban decay and unemployment more than anything. The Blackout in 1977 and the rioting and arson that resulted is commonly said to the nadir. The financial industry came back considerably in the 1980s, which was a big help for matters.

Was it worse than Detroit in the 1970s? It's a fascinating period.
 
While outside the initial OP, I have to give you Internet points for creativity in a scenario that is sadly not as implausible as it may seem.

Here's a scenario: September 1, 1976. Unit 2 and Unit 3 of Indian Point nuclear power plant go into a full Chernobyl style nuclear meltdown, or worse. That could certainly lead to a lot of abandoned buildings in New York, depending on how wind and other factors go.
 
Well the big problem for Detroit is that it's a one industry town and no single industry is going to be eternally successful. So to make New York suffer Detroititis you really need to change the economic structure of the city.
 
Middle of 1970s New York was almost bankrupt, but had luck to get a credit.
in that Time, the city was in poor state, area like Bronx's entire block of flats were demolish, leaving huge hole in landscape.

There two events who turn NY to dying Detroit
One: The Bankruptcy of New York happened really
Two: Three Mile Island accident goes really out of control and contaminate the north east coast of USA, include the city Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
 
Yeah, just watch The Warrriors for an idea on how bad things were in 1970s New York. Times Square was porn shops and prostitutes, the city was broke and bleeding out.

Given how the city is thriving now, it's a suprise how far it has come from that actually.
 

FDW

Banned
Going back a little further, you could always have New York not have as extensive of a transportation system TTL.
 
Middle of 1970s New York was almost bankrupt, but had luck to get a credit.
in that Time, the city was in poor state, area like Bronx's entire block of flats were demolish, leaving huge hole in landscape.

There two events who turn NY to dying Detroit
One: The Bankruptcy of New York happened really
Two: Three Mile Island accident goes really out of control and contaminate the north east coast of USA, include the city Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

Lets go with the first, because I think that has the most interesting implications here, in regards to how far cities can sink.
 
As has been said, NYC is too much the center of the economic universe to make such a nosedive all on its own.
Isn't there a way to perhaps remove the NYC from being that center?

Well IIRC London in the last five to ten years or so has overtaken New York as a financial market in a quite a number of areas. Perhaps an earlier British government introduces reforms of London's financial markets like the 1986 Big Bang whilst in the US the Federal Reserve was much stricter in their interpretation of legislation like the Glass-Steagall Act, or due to some financial incident you also get a Sarbanes-Oxley Act type law as well to really help kneecap it. Combine that with New York actually going broke as they don't get the federal loan, trading on Wall Street dropping even more than it actually did in our timeline, and crime not going down as historically happened and I think that would give you a pretty potent combination to make New York if not Detroit then at least in a very bad condition.
 
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