Everything you have come to know about living in the first world becomes negotiable in Detroit.
There are huge chunks of the city where there is no postal mail delivery. The streets are not plowed or salted. Calling 911 because an ambulance is required can mean hour-plus waits.
America is an insane place, and Detroit is a special microcosm within that insanity.
Another thing to consider is that most major urban centers have huge amounts of regulation prohibiting new business operations like this (or rendering them practically impossible). Detroit is fairly unique in that almost anything you can think up, you're free to just go ahead and do it. (The cops are too busy even to deal with all of the big, real crimes.) It also means you're basically on your own if someone decides to torch your whole bus fleet - the city that would regulate transit stuff is too busy to do that - but also too busy to properly patrol everything and deter crime. It's a mixed bag.
It really is the closest thing to a functioning anarchy that one can find in the first world. I think it's wonderful, but I wouldn't want to live there (again).
(I am a born-and-raised Detroiter living in Berlin by way of Manhattan.)
There are huge chunks of the city where there is no postal mail delivery. The streets are not plowed or salted. Calling 911 because an ambulance is required can mean hour-plus waits.
America is an insane place, and Detroit is a special microcosm within that insanity.
Another thing to consider is that most major urban centers have huge amounts of regulation prohibiting new business operations like this (or rendering them practically impossible). Detroit is fairly unique in that almost anything you can think up, you're free to just go ahead and do it. (The cops are too busy even to deal with all of the big, real crimes.) It also means you're basically on your own if someone decides to torch your whole bus fleet - the city that would regulate transit stuff is too busy to do that - but also too busy to properly patrol everything and deter crime. It's a mixed bag.
It really is the closest thing to a functioning anarchy that one can find in the first world. I think it's wonderful, but I wouldn't want to live there (again).
(I am a born-and-raised Detroiter living in Berlin by way of Manhattan.)