By 2010 only 700,000 people remained; ruin-porn websites cataloged the crumbling mansions and abandoned factories. The unemployment rate among the city's black men was over 40 percent. With so few working people left to pay taxes, the city had accumulated nearly $20 billion in debt, and in July 2013, Detroit filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
In the inventory that followed, two opposing line items attracted headlines. On the debit side was a daunting pension shortfall that threatened retired city workers with drastic benefit cuts. On the plus side were the priceless masterpieces at the Detroit Institute of Arts, which, due to a quirk in bylaws dating from the start of the factory era, all belonged to the city. Estimates of the salable value of the city's Caravaggios and van Goghs were coming in at $2 billion or more.