the choice to default on some of that debt and all the while is making brutally difficult triage decisions on which spending to cut. it's led detroit mayor david bing to cut city spending by $172 million a year since taking office in 2009. the less the city spends on basic services, the less people want to live in detroit. the city's population has dropped by 5% since 2000. around 30% of detroit is vacant. the empty properties occupy an area nearly the size of san francisco. according to the "washington post," property tax collections are down 20% in the last 50 years. the more the tax base shrink, the less revenue the city has. the revenue, services, and the more people leave. today the "the new york times" had a really eye opening front-page story about what all this means in real terms for the people of detroit. and let's remember there are still 700,000 people living there. people in detroit can no longer count on even the most basic of