Religion & Law

Apparently, the census does not follow Super Bowl ads:

The population of Detroit has fallen back 100 years.

The flight of middle-class African-Americans to the suburbs fueled an exodus that cut Detroit's population 25% in the past decade to 713,777, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. That's the city's lowest population level since the 1910 census, when automobile mass production was making Detroit Detroit.

60 years ago, Detroit was America's 6th largest city.  Of more parochial interest, perhaps, the Diocese of Detroit is older than the state of Michigan; it is home to approximately 300 parishes and missions, and 100 Catholic schools.  But, again, it seems, as an urban community, to be imploding (or "dying"), in a way that (it strikes me) is unique in the United States today.

Why is this happening?  Could it have been prevented?  Can it be stopped, slowed, or reversed?  Should we (i.e., people who are interested in what Catholic social theory and teaching has to say about the law's project of ordering human communities) care?