Detroit has filed for bankruptcy. On Thursday, Detroit became the largest American city to declare bankruptcy.

Detroit was once an industrial titan, but in recent years it has taken heavy losses due to the declining auto industry, job loss, population flight, and a total loss of revenue to cover infrastructure, lighting, police, and other services.

Detroit is $18 billion dollars in debt.

"Let me be blunt: Detroit's broke," Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said.

Detroit once had more than 1.8 million people and was the U.S.'s fourth-largest city. It currently has about 700,000 people and thousands of abandoned buildings and neglected lots.

Four months ago, Snyder brought in a Washington bankruptcy, Kevyn Orr, to save Detroit. Orr wsa brought in as an emergency financial manager; he previously assisted Chrysler with a successful restructuring. At that time, he said he thought the city could "rise from the ashes".

That promise seems less true today, however. Orr sent a letter to the governor saying he saw no alternative to filing for Chapter 9.

"Detroit today is a shell of the thriving metropolis that it once was," wrote Orr.

Detroit has been among the nation's 10 most violent cities for 24 of the last 27 years. Average police response time is 58 minutes; the national average is 11 minutes.  Orr blamed fiscal mismanagement, rapidly shrinking population, and aging infrastructure and services for some of Detroit's issues. They began in the 1960s with suburban miagration, and were fueled by race riots, declining industry and manufacturing jobs, and the later death of the auto industry.

The governor called Detroit's Chapter 9 bankruptcy "the opportunity for a fresh start," for Detroit and all of Michigan.

"For Michigan to be a great state, Detroit needs to be a great city," he said.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), a Detroit resident, said of the filing, "I know deep in my heart that the people of Detroit will face this latest challenge with the same determination that we have always shown."

Detroit city officials were resigned and sober, but also hopeful.

"The best way to solve our PR problem is to fix the damn problem," said Sandy Baruah, chief executive of the Detroit Regional Chamber. Baruah said the bankruptcy was "without a doubt" the best decision.

Detroit has been on an uptick, with office buildings and new businesses opening. But it has been unable to garner foreign investors.

"The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that you have a problem, and the second step is actually doing something about it," Baruah said.

GM and Chrysler, once "Motor City's" major employers were bailed out by the government during the recession from bankruptcy; their sales have rebounded astoundingly well. However, they have not retained employees, much less hired new ones. Instead, manufacturing has gone overseas.

In addition, the 2002-2008 mayor Kwame Kilpatrick ran what prosecutors later described as a "private profit machine" out of City Hall by taking bribes, outspending his salary, and garnering friends' companies millions of dollars in contracts.

In March, Kilpatrick was convicted of 24 criminal charges, including racketeering conspiracy.