Six crazy ideas for saving Detroit

Because that won't work. I said it before -- all it will be is another way for companies to forum-shop for the best tax deals, thereby forcing their existing cities to match. This is a strategy already in full bloom around the world, to the point that the G20 is trying to curb it: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/business/global/g-20-nations-back-plan-to-curb-corporate-tax-evasion.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

It also happens in state-to-state competitions. And it will be just another empty promise and a vehicle for corporations to take more of their bite. And it won't save Detroit, because very few people will actually move there, and there will be no money for services for the ones who do.

 

Actually, Lowell's population nowadays is only a few thousand off its peak in the 1920s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell,_Massachusetts

 

1. Won't work. They tried this by giving the Big Three huge tax breaks in the 80s to stick around. They still sent jobs to Mexico. Now it's a matter of perception. That image of a bombed out hell-hole, the picture of the crumbling building, that line from "The Simpsons" about Detroit "living in Mad Max times" is the same thing companies are thinking when they think of the city. Frankly it's the same thing people in Birmingham, Troy, Royal Oak, Grosse Pointe, Novi, Southfield and all the other suburbs think too so even a tax break for starting a new business won't work since the guy in Dearborn thinking he's always wanted to start that ___ company is also thinking "but I'd rather not get shot leaving work so I'll start it here instead of in the city."

2 won't work. See point 1.

3 won't work. Everyone will just put down some phony address on the forms to qualify and then go live wherever they want.

4 can't be serious. $100,000 isn't even change in the couch cushions compared to the kind of money Detroit needs.

5 would just be banking on one sector continuing to supply jobs, which is what got Detroit in this trouble to begin with.

6 would be nice but I doubt Canada even wants it now. I mean sure, they did invade the place 201 years ago and it would improve their chances of winning a Stanley Cup, but it would be more trouble than it's worth. (Selling Texas back to Mexico however would totally be a great move)


other ideas that won't work:
Urban farming- soil is probably too polluted from 100+ years of industry
Merging with the rest of the county - The Grosses would never go for it. Hell at this point I doubt Hamtramck would go for it. It would have worked wonders 50 years ago when Jacksonville did exactly the same thing. Too late now.
A major university - (saw that one on Slate today) Wayne State already has 30,000 students. They all live in Oakland county and drive in for class.

Ultimately what needs to happen is move all city residents into a smaller geographic area, bulldoze everything west of the Southfield Freeway and north of Seven Mile and move those people closer to the city center in order to give police fewer streets to patrol and utility crews a smaller area to get electricity and water to and garbage crews a smaller area to pick up. But even this would take time, money and patience and I'm not sure how much is left.

Alternately they could just divide the entire city up into a dozen smaller ones. Let each neighborhood call its own shots, police its own people, compete for state tax dollars and jobs. Corruption has been one of the major issues so if the prize you got was a contract with a city of 60,000 instead of 700,000, maybe it's no longer worth it.

Who knows, maybe every suggestion pieced together will be part of the solution. Or maybe there is no answer because nothing will work. I just wish something would.

 

Why does Detroit need to be saved?

 

Uh, OK, master of obscure and unrelated points. Why don't you measure that against population growth or its ranking in a list of American cities by population? I'll save you the trouble: A town that has fewer people now than it did a hundred years ago can be said to be in decline.

 

Except for the wall, isn't that what's been happening for the last 40 years?

 

For starters, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 prevented business owners from hiring employees for mere pennies and child labor was banned.

"Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, ...tell you...that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry." -- FDR

http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/flsa1938.htm

 

Silicon Valley is one of the most difficult places to do business in the United States.

Land is ridiculously expensive and so are employee salaries and benefits.

Workplace and environmental regulations in California are onerous and costly.

Traffic is terrible.

And yet, it is the center of the tech universe in the United States.

Why?

The workforce is there.

The infrastructure is there.

The vendors are there.

The investors are there.

The brainpower is there.

Detroit has none of the above.

The only thing that Detroit has to offer is "cheap."

"Cheap" isn't enough of an inducement to attract businesses if none of the basics you need for success are in place.

And let's say, hypothetically, that Detroit magically eliminated all taxes and regulation.

Who are the businesses that Detroit targets?

Manufacturing? Retail? Services?

Who is the customer?

Who looks at Detroit and says, "I want to relocate in Detroit?"

 

You're the one who brought up Lowell, and you didn't say anything about 100 years ago.

And it's silly to say a town with less population now than 100 years ago can be said to be in decline. If you're using 100 years ago as an example, then Detroit has 300K more people now. Yet, nobody would say it's prospering because of that population increase. It's in decline because of a lack of industry, not because of population. Not to mention, people are heading to the suburbs, which caused a huge influx in the metro-are population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit,_Mich.

 

Whatever point you're trying to make, I concede it.

Now ... back to the discussion.

 

And, this helped turn around the economy?

 

Not wasting my time on someone who will not listen.

wikipedia plus new deal on google... it should be easy to find