Presumably this will be greatly affected by what you think actually happened to Detroit

[james_davis_nicoll]

What would a Detroit-style urban bankruptcy IN SPACE! look like?

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Well, of course, in space unproductive people i.e. the retired who aren't billionaires would be returned to Earth because they'd be taking up valuable space :)

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Some segments of the station stop paying for air; the doors are sealed and their supply is cut off.

[arkessian.livejournal.com]

Grim. I wouldn't expect it to be reported. Just silence. Eventually.

[ice-hesitant.livejournal.com]

Failure to build a space elevator in good times collapses space industry in bad times.

(I believe Detroit's problem is voting down subway construction in an early 20th century plebiscite.)

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Well, they'd have to be fairly self-sufficient in consumables, or bad shit would happen. Are they autarks, or do they run more like the ISS, relying on a Progress ship every 3 months or they run out of air?

Positing near-Autarky, they might be able to cope by defaulting on their debt and turning into Godless Commie culture-niks for a few decades while they try to build up some credit based on a trade surplus. But if they need to import essentials things could turn very unpleasant. Very unpleasant indeed.

[dsrtao]

Do they have a large number of factories suited to produce space-car-equivalents?

Bankruptcy schmankruptcy

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

The decay of Detroit's infrastructure has been underway for decades--streets flood when it rains, traffic lights haven't worked for a long time, cops take literally hours to respond, etc. etc. I assume that the version of this in space would be, by the time the emergency manager declares bankruptcy, everybody's been dead for years.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

"Down and Out on Ellfive-Prime" was a hobos-on-a-space-station story with tramps roasting guinea-pigs rather than sparrows on curtain-rods. Think "Elysium" with fewer explosions and more technocracy. I think it was published in Omni Google Google ah Dean Ing was the perpetrator, 1979.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Well, Detroit's bankruptcy is largely due to depopulation. Basically, half of the city moved out, but the city didn't shrink.

If the space-hab were reasonably close to self-sufficient in basic supplies (air, food, water recycling) half the population moving out might be a non-event, or at least not a dramatic event.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. You can't have shoddy infrastructure in space. Everyone would die.

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Would it look anything like the, I think, second-last Venus Equilateral story, the one with the snowstorm inside?

--Dave