It’s been a week since motorists and passersby competed with armored truck crews and police for money that landed like litter along the I-75/Chrysler freeway in Detroit.

It was about 8:30 a.m. on June 11 when a Loomis armored car transporting an unknown amount of cash lost part of its load, reportedly newly printed $20 and $100 bills. No one’s yet sure how it happened. The freeway was closed for about an hour as Loomis crews and police recovered as much of the cash as they could.

But they had competition. According to news reports, dozens of motorists and passersby scrambled along the freeway to grab up as much money as they could.

In the end, there’s $160,000 missing.

Loomis put out word that if anyone turned in any of the cash by noon the next day, it would pay a 10 percent reward and ask no questions. After that, Loomis said it would try to identify and turn over to authorities those who grabbed the money off the freeway; anyone making off with more than $100 could possibly be charged with larceny, which is a felony.

Now, a week after Loomis announced its reward program, no one’s turned in a single dollar, and no one around here is surprised.

That no one turned in any of the money is a sign of just how desperate life in the city is these days. The once-mighty center of the manufacturing universe, Detroit today is but an anorexic ghost of its powerful past; it is ground zero of the ongoing American economic collapse.

The Brookins Institute just released its ranking of how the 100 largest American metropolitan areas have fared in the current recession. The institute ranked each area based on employment, unemployment rates, wages, gross metropolitan product, housing prices, and foreclosure rates.

San Antonio, Texas, led the list for successfully weathering the economic tsunami that has, in turn, savaged Detroit, which ranks dead last.

Once again, no one is surprised.