Detroit and Michigan

From an article in The Onion:

Detroit, a former industrial metropolis in southeastern Michigan with a population of just under 1 million, was sold at auction Tuesday to bulk scrap dealers and smelting foundries across the United States. "This is what's best for Detroit," Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick said. "We must act now, while we can still get a little something for it." Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper.

From an entry in land+living, about an interesting "art project," the DDD project:

Detroit is one of the most spectacular examples of boom and bust in the United States - once opulent and then blighted - this capital of the Rust Belt is one of the nation's fastest shrinking cities and prime example of the phenomenon of "white flight" and, subsequently, sprawl. Large numbers of buildings and homes have been abandoned and many have been torn down or have fallen down and cleared away. Yet many vacant buildings remain in various states of decay. Preceding the recent Super Bowl held in Detroit, an anonymous group calling themselves the DDD Project (Detroit. Demolition. Disneyland.) began targeting highly visible abandoned structures for intervention. Marked with a circled "D" in chalk by the city for demolition by the city years prior, the DDD Project transformed the houses, creating highlights within a context of depression, with a coat of bright orange paint, covering every surface of the facade: "Every detail is accentuated through the unification of color. Broken windows become jagged lines. Peeling paint becomes texture."

From an article in The Detroit News: Detroit was America's fattest city in 2004 and third fattest in 2005, but now it's dropped all the way down to fifteenth. Chicago is now the fattest. Baltimore is the fittest.

Top 25 Fattest Cities
(2005 rankings are in parenthesis)
1. Chicago (5)
2. Las Vegas (9)
3. Los Angeles (21*)
4. Dallas (6)
5. Houston (1)
6. Memphis, Tenn. (4)
7. Long Beach, Calif. (20)
8. El Paso, Texas (11)
9. Kansas City, Mo. (18)
10. Mesa, Ariz. (15)
11. Indianapolis (13)
12. San Antonio (10)
13. Fort Worth, Texas (14)
14. Miami (19)
15. Detroit (3)
16. Columbus, Ohio (16)
17. Oklahoma City (21)
18. Cleveland (24*)
19. Wichita, Kan. (17)
20. Charlotte, N.C. (24)
21. San Diego (9*)
22. Fresno, Calif. (14*)
23. Philadelphia (2)
24. San Jose, Calif. (17*)
25. New York (8)

Among U.S. cities, Detroit is the most segregated, 8th most violent, and 2nd most dangerous.  On the dangerous list, Detroit is behind #1 Camden, N.J. and ahead of #3 St. Louis (the nation's most violent city) and #4, Flint, MI.  Among the safest cities with populations over 75,000, Troy, MI, was in the top 10.

...at Saginaw High School.  They used metal detectors on Friday after a sophomore was shot in the chest during lunch hour on Thursday.

From Friday's article in The Detroit News:

A month ago, a drive-by shooter opened fire as hundreds of students were leaving the school's homecoming dance. A freshman and an eighth-grader were injured. Just weeks earlier, two teens attacked a police officer in the parking lot after a basketball game.  In August, security guards apprehended a freshman at the school who had a loaded .32-caliber handgun in his pants.  Last school year was similar.  Shots were fired in the parking lot during lunch hour in December. In May, a 17-year-old attempted to slash another student's throat with a utility knife in the halls. Across town at Arthur Hill High School, someone took aim with a shotgun as classes let out, blowing out the back window of a parked car.  Manley, a 33-year veteran of the school district, said disputes that begin in the community, on the streets, are carrying over into the schools.