For decades, often corrupt politicians in Michigan have pursued viciously anti-business tax policies in the name of helping out the little guy. They assumed the auto industry would always be there to absorb the cost. 

Soon most of the new operations were located in other states or across the border in Canada. Those with better prospects first fled the city, then began to trickle out of the region itself, following the flight of capital to areas that didn't punish enterprise. 

Now the entire industry is in peril, only the poorest of the poor remain behind and the once glorious city of Detroit is little more than a sometimes hauntingly beautiful ghost town, as seen in this photo essay by Time magazine.