我认识一位老妇人，十年没打开过一次家里窗户。她怕外面有人爬进来。可自家屋里，弥漫着腐臭味。

我还认识一个女人，她打电话给我说，看到窗外有具尸体已经在那儿六个半小时了。原因是当地的太平间大幅削减经费。在这里，连死者都没有尊严。巴格达都比这儿好。

最新消息？有个人被杀了，扔在一栋废弃的房子里，然后付之一炬。这里有几万栋房子可供纵火犯选择。

我知道有个11岁男孩遭遇枪击，子弹打穿了手臂。警察把他塞进警车赶往医院。这就是我们处置伤者的办法。没有救护车。底特律每天大约三分之二的救护车是坏的。

我认识一个警察，他的警车底下有好几个破洞。没计算机设备，没空调，里程计的读数已经超过14.7万英里（约23.6万公里）。他的防弹衣已经报废。工资已经削减了10%。

我认识一个消防队员，他因为一场大火而死。但不是被烧死的。当时他在一栋废弃的房子里，天花板突然塌了下来，压在他身上。同事找不到他，因为他身上的定位报警器坏了，发不出声音。等到发现时，他已窒息而死。

最近，在我们镇上，911急救电话坏了15个小时，但大家似乎习以为常。急救电话正常运转的时候，平均等待时间是58分钟。除非“立刻有生命危险”，否则消防员不能使用液压梯。一旦火灾，大家想想吧。液压梯已经好几年没检修过了。

如果这些事情发生在纽约，足以成为传遍全球的大新闻。但这里是底特律，根本没人鸟你。就算是在底特律，人们也已经习惯了接受这一切，不愿提这些芝麻大的琐事。

麻木的情绪以奇特的方式转化为某种力量。大家都想尽办法熬过去。

我们破产了。在底特律，我们早就知道结局如此。上周不过是用《破产法》第九条规定的程序对外宣告。美国历史上最大一笔城市债务——至少180亿美元。美国忽然又关心起我们了。

怎会落得这个下场？别人问我。毕竟，99年前，亨利•福特曾为底特律工人提供5美元一天的薪酬和额外分红。还不到一百年时间，怎会落得这个下场？

简单的回答是：城市管理不善、种族骚乱、白人大逃离、黑人大逃离、死人大逃离（人们通常会把死者从坟墓掘出，迁往郊区）。还有能量巨大、但不会做事的工会和管理层。证据？汽车工业数十亿美元的纾困。感谢你们美国纳税人！

还有就是令人惊叹的市政腐败：前市长奎姆•M.基尔帕特里克（Kwame M. Kilpatrick）正在等待联邦监狱的床位，他犯有敲诈、勒索和受贿罪。他卷走了底特律数百万美元，以及数万当地儿童的未来。让他下地狱吧。我可不想为了他的下半生支付半毛钱。不过，感谢你们，纳税人！你们会付钱的。前市长的豪华律师团的费用也将由公众买单。

底特律终于走上了破产申请程序。这有什么意义？美国读者们请当心，很快就会降临到你们头上：洛杉矶、巴尔的摩、芝加哥、费城。2011年，穆迪计算了伊利诺伊州三家最大的养老金机构的负债是1330亿美元。（预计明年的数字将会更高。）这相当于6个底特律。

底特律至少180亿美元的负债，其中大约70亿美元的抵押品是赌场利润和发电厂的税收。这意味，大银行都将得到赔偿。剩下110亿美元左右的坏帐，大约90亿美元是属于退休人员和现在的市政工人，如消防员和警察。这些债务源于退休金和医保基金，这些基金被市政府忽悠了。这批人是潜在的受害者。

简单算一下，我们应不应该牺牲3万名工人和退休人员，以拯救70万人和他们的子孙后代？大多数底特律人的答案是“应该”。别轻易下判断。我们感到很遗憾。但我们毕竟是美国人。我们是条骨瘦如柴的丧家犬。我们看不到任何希望。你在审视、端详我们。

退休金、医疗补助和奥巴马的医改方案所允诺的福利都将削减。再次感谢你们纳税人！

北美五大湖还有些希望。我们有饮用水源，利润可观的汽车公司，每年与加拿大超过1300亿美元的贸易额（底特律与加拿大温莎市接壤，是美加贸易的重要通道——观察者网译注），世界级的研究型大学，还有，干净的财务状况表。嗨，这对保持卓越地位有好处。亚特兰大，你有什么？

来看看底特律吧，我的美国同胞们。来看看你们的未来。给堆积的轮胎踢上一脚。如果你想把钱要回来，大可以去扒掉废弃房屋的铜管和电线——如果你还找得到的话。可能有人已经抢先一步。

本文由观察者网朱新伟译自《纽约时报》Charlie LeDuff专栏文章《Come See Detroit, America’s Future》，点击下页阅读原文：

 

 

DETROIT — I KNOW an old woman who hasn’t opened her windows in a decade, afraid that what’s outside will climb inside. Inside, there is the stale odor of dead air.

I know another woman who called me about a corpse lying outside her window for six and a half hours. This was because of cutbacks at the morgue. No dignity in death here. They do it better in Baghdad.

The latest trend? When a person is murdered, he is thrown into an abandoned house, and it is set on fire. There are tens of thousands to choose from.

I know of an 11-year-old boy who was shot, the bullet going clean through his arm. The cops stuffed him in the back of a squad car and rushed him to the hospital. That’s how we do it. There was no ambulance available. About two-thirds of the city’s fleet is broken on an average day.

I know a cop who drives around in a squad car with holes in the floorboards. There is no computer, no air-conditioning, the odometer reading 147,000 miles. His bulletproof vest has expired. His pay has been cut 10 percent.

I knew a firefighter who died in a fire, but not from the fire. He died when the roof of an abandoned house collapsed on him and his brethren could not find him because his homing alarm was broken and did not sound. He suffocated.

In our town, the 911 dispatch system recently went down for 15 hours, and no one seemed to give a damn. When the system is running, the average wait is 58 minutes. Firefighters can’t use hydraulic ladders on fire trucks to do their jobs unless there is an “immediate threat to life.” In a fire — imagine that. The ladders haven’t been inspected in years.

If this were New York, these stories would have ricocheted around the world. But this is Detroit and, of course, nobody gives a damn. Even here people have been conditioned to accept these things as normal, a nuisance, the buzz of a fly.

This numbness, in a peculiar way, is a sign of strength. People here manage to get along somehow.

So we went broke, bust, bankrupt. We’ve known that in Detroit for years. Only now it is official with a Chapter 9 filing last week. The biggest municipal default in United States history — at least $18 billion. Suddenly, America gives a rip.

How did it get this way, I’m asked? After all, it was just 99 years ago that Henry Ford offered the workingman $5 a day and profit-sharing. How, in less than a century, did it come to this?

The short answers: municipal mismanagement, race riots, white flight, black flight, dead flight (people routinely disinter their deceased and relocate them to the suburbs). There were the overreaching unions and management that couldn’t balance a ball. Proof? The multibillion-dollar bailout of the auto industry. Thank you, American taxpayers!

Then there is our spectacular civic corruption: A former mayor, Kwame M. Kilpatrick, waits for a bed in federal prison, convicted of extortion, racketeering and bribery. He looted the city of millions of dollars and stole the future of thousands of children. They can send him to hell for all I care. I don’t want to pay for his upkeep. But thank you, taxpayers! You will pay for it. And the ex-mayor’s team of super lawyers will also be paid with the public dime.

So Detroit files for bankruptcy. What does this mean? Pay close attention because it may be coming to you soon, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia. In 2011, Moody’s calculated the unfunded liabilities for Illinois’s three largest state-run pension plans to be $133 billion. (It is expected to be even larger this year.) That’s the size of six Detroit bankruptcies — give or take a few hundred million.

Of Detroit’s debt of at least $18 billion, about $7 billion is secured by collateral like casino revenues and utility taxes. That means creditors — read: big banks — will get paid. Of the remaining $11 billion dollars or so in unsecured debt, about $9 billion is owed to retirees and current municipal workers, people like firefighters and police officers. These debts come in the form of promised pension checks and health care benefits, all backed by a false, unsecured promise. These are the people who are likely to lose out.

In simple math, do we sacrifice 30,000 former and current workers to save a city of 700,000 people and their progeny? Most Detroiters will tell you yes. Don’t judge. We feel bad about it. But we’re simply Americans. We are a gaunt dog. We are desperate. And you are watching and studying us.

Pension checks will be much smaller than planned and health care benefits will get foisted off on Medicaid and Obamacare. Thanks again, taxpayers!

There is hope up here on the Great Lakes. We have fresh water, profitable auto companies, more than $130 billion a year in trade with Canada crossing through our city, a world-class research university and, eventually, a clean balance sheet. Hey, it helps to be first. What do you have, Atlanta?

So come visit Detroit, my fellow Americans. Come take a look at your future. Come give the tires a kick. And if you want your money back, come strip copper pipes and wiring from the abandoned buildings — if you can find any copper. Chances are, someone beat you to it.

Charlie LeDuff, a reporter at the TV station WJBK and a former New York Times correspondent, is the author of “Detroit: An American Autopsy.”