Detroit, which Democratic mayors have governed exclusively for more than 60 straight years, was ranked this week by personal finance website WalletHub as the worst city in the United States to raise a family.
WalletHub used five metrics to rank 182 U.S. cities as the best places to raise children: family fun, health and safety, education and child care, affordability, and socioeconomics. Detroit ranked dead last in an aggregation of those metrics.
Detroit's poor ranking comes after decades of single-party Democratic rule, during which time the city saw its living standards, safety, and economic prowess decline precipitously. Since 1962, every mayor of the city has been a Democrat.
WalletHub's ranking of Detroit has declined since 2018, when Democratic Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer won election and committed to increasing literacy and restoring Detroit's dismal education system to its former glory.
Whitmer during her tenure has failed to transform education in Detroit. WalletHub ranked Detroit an abysmal 180th out of 182 major cities for education and child care. In 2019, Whitmer vetoed more than $100 million in spending for charter schools and summer reading programs in Michigan, calling the proposals "legislative pork barrel."