(03-30-2020 06:51 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote: IMO Detroit has to do with a huge international airport and a large permanent population of people who travel to the Far East, the Middle East and to India.
International hubs like Atlanta and Detroit seem to be getting drilled by this.
Detroit is only 16th in international flights a day. New York (both JFK and Newark), Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, O'Hare, Atlanta, Houston, Fort Lauderdale, DFW, Dulles, Boston, Orlando, Honolulu and Seattle are all ahead of it - although I recognize it's not just the number of international flights but also where they're going to and coming from that matters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_th...ted_States
I actually have a theory the coronavirus is hitting the african-american population worse even though I have yet to see any stories on that. Detroit has the nation's highest percentage of african-americans of any big city in the country (over 80 percent in the city). New Orleans and Albany, Georgia are two more cities with large african-american populations that have been hit hard.
If that theory is correct, it's probably connected to health reasons, specifically diabetes and high blood pressure. Among big cities, Detroit is the 4th worst in the country for diabetes (behind Miami, New Orleans and Charlotte - Houston is 5th). NYC is in the top 10 too. Some of the cities on this list haven't been hit hard by covid 19 yet but perhaps their lack of early exposure and warmer weather has helped them out a bit?
https://psydprograms.org/projected-diabe...n-america/
It's probably a case of a lot of different factors - weather, international visitors, population density, health of its residents, and a bit of luck too. Also, a cities' medical facilities certainly has something to do with it - for being the nation's biggest city, NYC really isn't a good medical city at all. Houston has the nation's largest medical center so perhaps that's helping us for now (fingers crossed).