Another conspirarcy theory-Retailers Exit Detroit - No Grocery Chains Left!

[BankruptPinoy]

Retailers Head for Exits in Detroit

June 17, 2009

By ANDREW GROSSMAN

DETROIT -- They call this the Motor City, but you have to leave town to buy a Chrysler or a Jeep.

Borders Inc. was founded 40 miles away, but the only one of the chain's bookstores here closed this month. And Starbucks Corp., famous for saturating U.S. cities with its storefronts, has only four left in this city of 900,000 after closures last summer.

Lochmoor Chrysler Jeep on Detroit's East Side has stopped selling Chrysler products, one of the 789 franchises Chrysler is dropping from its retail network.

There was a time early in the decade when downtown Detroit was sprouting new cafes and shops, and residents began to nurture hopes of a rebound. But lately, they are finding it increasingly tough to buy groceries or get a cup of fresh-roast coffee as the 11th largest U.S. city struggles with the recession and the auto-industry crisis.

No national grocery chain operates a store here. A lack of outlets that sell fresh produce and meat has led the United Food and Commercial Workers union and a community group to think about building a grocery store of its own.

Last week, Lochmoor Chrysler Jeep on Detroit's East Side stopped selling Chrysler products, one of the 789 franchises Chrysler Group LLC is dropping from its retail network. It was Detroit's last Chrysler Jeep store.

"The lack of retail is one of the biggest challenges the city faces," said James Bieri, president of Bieri Co., a Detroit-based real-estate brokerage. "Trying to understand how to get it to come back will be one of the most important keys to its resurgence -- if it ever has one."

Detroit's woes are largely rooted in the collapse of the auto industry. General Motors Corp., one of downtown's largest employers and the last of the Big Three auto makers with its headquarters here, has drastically cut white-collar workers and been offered incentives to move to the suburbs. Other local businesses that serviced the auto maker, from ad agencies and accounting firms to newsstands and shoe-shine outlets, also have been hurt.

The city's 22.8% unemployment rate is among the highest in the U.S.; 30% of residents are on food stamps.

"As the city loses so much, the tax base shrinks and the city has to cut back services," said Margaret Dewar, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan. That causes such hassles for retailers as longer police-response times, as well as less-frequent snow plowing and trash pickup.

While all of southeast Michigan is hurting because of the auto-industry's troubles, Detroit's problems are compounded by decades of flight to the suburbs.

Hundreds of buildings were left vacant by the nearly one million residents who have left. Thousands of businesses have closed since the city's population peaked six decades ago.

Navigating zoning rules and other red tape to develop land for big-box stores that might cater to a low-income clientele is daunting.

The lack of grocery stores is especially problematic. The last two mainstream chain groceries closed in 2007, when The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. sold most of the southeast Michigan stores in its Farmer Jack chain to Kroger Corp., which declined to purchase the chain's two Detroit locations, causing them to close.

A 2007 study found that more than half of Detroit residents had to travel twice as far to reach a grocery store than a fast-food outlet or convenience store.

Michelle Robinson, 42 years old, does most of her shopping at big-box stores in the suburbs. When visitors staying at the hotel near her downtown office ask where to shop, she sends them to a mall in Dearborn, 12 miles away.

A few retailers are thriving. Family Dollar Stores Inc. has opened 25 outlets since 2003. A handful of independent coffee shops and a newly opened Tim Horton's franchise cater to workers downtown.

Discount grocer Aldi Inc. opened stores in the city in 2001 and 2005. A spokeswoman said the chain is "very bullish" on Detroit. Farmer's markets draw crowds looking for fresh produce.

Olga Stella, an official at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, works to persuade businesses to move to the city. She says companies have underestimated Detroit's economic potential and that Aldi and Family Dollar are proof there's money to be made here.

Meanwhile, the former Lochmoor Chrysler Jeep is now Lochmoor Automotive Group, a used-car dealership and repair shop. Gina Russo, daughter of the dealer's longtime owner, is being groomed to take over the family business. She has agreed to start selling small pickup trucks made by India's Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A19

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124510185111216455.html#printMode

[BankruptPinoy]

Of these areas, 112 probably won't return to their recent peaks until 2014 or later. These include Rust Belt towns such as Cleveland, Dayton and Akron, Ohio; Detroit, Warren and Flint, Mich.; the hurricane-ravaged Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss., area and the greater Los Angeles region, where the housing bubble and high unemployment have strangled the local economy.

The bleak jobs picture underscores the long, tough road ahead in rebuilding the U.S. economy after the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Of the 6 million jobs lost since the recession began 18 months ago, nearly 4 million were eliminated between November and April. The six-month freefall included a record four straight months with more than 600,000 job losses.

"This recession is unique because of the way it leveled the playing field," said James Diffley, IHS managing director of U.S. regional services. "The precipitating factor, after housing, was the finance industry, and that affected everybody. Now everybody's cutting back on debt, and the banks are being more cautious about lending, so there's less spending. All those things mitigate against a quick turnaround."

The IHS analysis covers 325 of 363 U.S. metropolitan areas, or population centers, as defined by the Census Bureau. Thirty-eight metro areas weren't included because of a lack of government data, said Jeannine Cataldi, an IHS senior economist.

Diffley said the projections reflect a local economy's response to various economic factors based on a statistical analysis of recent history.

IHS expects Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska to be among the first to match their previous employment peaks because their economies never fell as far as those in the rest of the country.

All three states are dominated by the energy industry and are benefitting from rising oil prices. They also have lower unemployment rates than the national average and have weathered only light-to-moderate job losses compared to the rest of the country. In April, Alaska was one of two states that had more people employed than it had in the previous year.

In addition, none of the states has suffered through the kind of major housing bubble that has sapped housing wealth nationwide. In fact, Alaska has one of the nation's lowest foreclosure rates.

Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, on the other hand, will take years to recover from manufacturing job losses, particularly in the troubled automobile industry.

President Barack Obama this week said that he expects the economic stimulus bill to create 600,000 jobs over the next 100 days, but most economists expect the economy to continue bleeding jobs for the foreseeable future.

"Although we expect the economy to bottom out in GDP terms during the second half of the year, job losses should continue throughout 2009, with the unemployment rate peaking just above 10 percent," said IHS chief U.S. economist Nigel Gault in a recent letter to investors. "We still expect total job losses to exceed 7 million. But the worst news is behind us, and employment declines should progressively soften as the year proceeds."

In fact, by the end of the year, the economy is expected to begin adding jobs. "We'll start to have an uptick, but it won't be very strong," Diffley said.

At least not until mid-2010, when a majority of states are likely to be adding jobs, Diffley said.

Expect much of the new job growth to occur in areas where the population is growing, Cataldi said. Many of the new jobs will be in the areas of professional and business services.

"We expect that to be a large growth sector going forward," Cataldi said.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/69823.html

[justbroke]

Of all your conspiracy postings Pinoy... I actually think this one is interesting.

Besides, with all these Ameros and Milwaukee Dollars... I think I can buy half of Detroit now.

[JRScott]

So they'll recover right around the time we hit the unfunded liabilities wall so there really won't be a recovery

[junker]

sounds a lot like Gary, INdiana.. they have been waiting for recovery for at least 50 years now....should be coming anyday though....

[Bandit]

Projection: It'll be years before jobs return to much of U.S.

and as they do, it will be junky jobs like sucky toyota plants at 11 bucks an hour, part time with no benefits with fear and threats every turn you make as you sweat drops of blood...kind of like chinas wages and conditions.

No Grocery Chains Left!

Sadly, two of the grocery chains here may be leaving as well. In fact I just talked to two people at one of the big chains just an hour ago as I was shopping and they are fearing losing their jobs as it goes belly up, while one of them has started denying her claims for a medical problem she has. The butcher manager who I know for some time confessed today that his hours were just cut by one third of what it was last year.