'Motor City' Detroit files for bankruptcy with 100,000 creditors The police and fire retirement scheme is owed $1.5 billion, while the city's Downtown Development Authority is owed $33.6 million. Mr Orr, a bankruptcy expert hired by the state in March to stop Detroit's fiscal free-fall, said Detroit would continue to pay its bills and employees. But, said Michael Sweet, a bankruptcy attorney in Fox-Rothschild's San Francisco office, "they don't have to pay anyone they don't want to. And no one can sue them. The city's financial problems have been spiralling out of control for decades. The decline in the car industry left many without jobs, meaning that families moved away. The population fell from 1.8 million in the 1950s to 700,000 today - and with it fell the tax revenues, business ownership and life of the city. An estimated 78,000 homes are unoccupied in the city, and in 2011 half of the occupiers of the city's 305,000 properties did not pay any tax. In a letter with the filing Rick Snyder, the Republican Governor of the state of Michigan, said he had approved a request from Detroit's state-appointed Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Mr Snyder said: "It is clear that the financial emergency in Detroit cannot be successfully addressed outside of such a filing, and it is the only reasonable alternative that is available. The citizens of Detroit need and deserve a clear road out of the cycle of ever-decreasing services. The only feasible path to a stable and solid Detroit is to file for bankruptcy protection. He said it was time to "face the fact that the city cannot and is not paying its debts as they become due and is insolvent."