Pro-Techt,
Thanks for the pics. Collectively, the pics resemble a devastated war zone to some extent. It clearly points to the need to not take our livelihoods too much for granted & that there are vulnerabilities & fragilities for our industry. Any aspect that is an impediment to us in our towns & cities must be considered seriously. It is a lose-lose for not just this city but for our country in general ... in terms of not being in as strong of a position of strength. This in turn makes it less likely to be able to help with urgent needs in the rest of the world also.
I vividly remember being a young business owner of 28 years old who traveled to Detroit for the 1980 ICA convention mainly to scout out deicer systems from Herm Deal of Huron Valley Sales who had a booth at Cobo Hall with the other exhibitors. Herm's right hand man took me under his wing somewhat ... saved me money by having me take a bus rather than a taxi a distance away to see one of their installed deicer systems first hand. He called the attendant at the car wash to make sure he was there to show me ... when I got there a large 40ish very Black African American ... graciously opened the heavily fortified ER
door to show me the actual real life installation & how it branched out from the ER to the concrete. I remember staying with my suitcase on close to the highest floor of one of the three very recently (1980) built Renaissance Center' Hotel Towers. I walked with a temporary limp because I had unexpectedly very badly sprained an ankle the day before of the airplane flight from Bismarck.
Not that any of us should get overly emotional about the devastation shown by the skillfully taken pictures that was only a fraction of the 100 mentioned by you of that area. Whether it be in a more rural setting or a large city ... we should all not have a defeatist attitude against government corruption that makes ours & other industries overall ... less viable.
I remember seeing & being in Specialty Equipment's (Minneapolis Area) thriving facility (tons of employees) back in 1987 & then seeing it almost completely abandoned with weeds overcoming their outer property etc. during a laundry industry related visit back in 2011. So it is not just our facilities ... but also manufacturing & other settings both rural & city that can be hurt by allowing the wrong people to get in positions of too much political power.
mike walsh
http://kingkoin.com/USA_Deficit_Reduction.html