The Night the Lights Went Out in Detroit.

A lot of "preppers" seem to think that TEOTWAWKI will happen fast. They will go to sleep one day in a comfortable middle-class neighborhood and wake up the next morning in a third world cesspool. Aside from a natural disaster that is not how it happens and those are temporary disruptions anyways -- not the end of Life As We Know It. Civilizations fall apart slowly and it takes generations for it to happen. Most people don't even know what the early stages look like (read Heinlein for some insights into that) but when the lights start going out it's a good bet that the shivas are in the home stretch and sprinting toward the finish line.

Half of Detroit’s Streetlights May Go Out as City Shrinks

Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights.

As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year.

Other U.S. cities have gone partially dark to save money, among them Colorado Springs; Santa Rosa, California; and Rockford, Illinois. Detroit’s plan goes further: It would leave sparsely populated swaths unlit in a community of 713,000 that covers more area than Boston, Buffalo and San Francisco combined. Vacant property and parks account for 37 square miles (96 square kilometers), according to city planners.

A good sign the so-called "leaders" in the affected areas are unable or unwilling to stop the collapse is when they decide to use shortages of services and goods to control the population.

“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”

The final collapse is still not going to happen over night but in some places the nights between now and then are going to be darker and more dangerous.

Fucking Governments.