Some Detroit residents voiced skepticism yesterday that the former U.S. manufacturing powerhouse would emerge in better shape from its historic bankruptcy filing designed to fix the city’s financial crisis, Reuters reported today. The bankruptcy, if approved by a federal judge, would force Detroit's thousands of creditors into negotiations with the city's emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, to resolve an estimated $18.5 billion in debt that has crippled Michigan's largest city. Currently, a third of Detroit's 700,000 residents live in poverty and about a fifth are unemployed. Detroit’s economic struggles have resulted in a deterioration of city life. The murder rate is the highest in nearly 40 years, only a third of its ambulances were in service in the first quarter of 2013 and nearly 78,000 abandoned buildings create “additional public safety problems,” Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) wrote in a letter accompanying the filing.
