The city of Detroit has been in financial difficulty for so long that it has become almost an article of faith on the streets that, somehow, it will manage. But on February 19th it became highly unlikely that it will be allowed to muddle on for much longer. A state review team concluded that there was a local-government financial emergency in Detroit and no way of resolving the situation. The governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, has 30 days to respond, but most people think he will take far less time than this to appoint an emergency manager. A looser power-sharing agreement between the city and the state has already been tried over the past year and has, clearly, failed.
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