Federal Judge to Order a New Management System for the Detroit Water & Sewerage Dept.

[Detroitnerd]

OK.... this entire discussion is turing into a "city" vs. "suburb" rant, with lots of slogans [[and crickets) being used to make points. As a suburbanite who really doesn't care who owns or runs the damn thing, as long as a better job is done, let me ask a few things....

1) why are Detroiters so adamant about holding on to the system... control... understandable... you did start and build it... but at some point its' maintenance has become a nightmare.

Isn't everything like this in metro Detroit? When you have a population that has remained flat that has gobbled up five times as much land in 65 years, when your "solution" to a neighborhood perceived to be "on the way down" is to move out to the next cornfield, there comes a point when maintenance of infrastructure is going to be a major problem. Same with our roads, our transit, our sewers, etc. The real solution is to go through an intelligent process of retrenchment, but that is off the table, as state pols and county officials are all waiting for the growth machine to be turned back on so they can build out into the next cornfields...

2) is selling the system for billions such a bad idea? I mean not to the suburbs, but to a private entity... is that really so horrifiic? Wouldn't you rather sell it on "Detroit's own terms", rather than have it taken away.... or to have an EFM say it's on the auction block?

Yes, it's a very bad idea, especially to a private entity. If you think the system sucks now, wait until you insert a middleman-type business that wants to profit off it. And the idea of selling it vs. having it taken away is a false either-or choice. Anyway, how the hell would the city be "selling it on its own terms" when it has the gun-to-the-head of it being taken away as another choice? Ever hear of an offer you can't refuse?

3) it's not exactly Detroit's ace in the hole on stopping "exurban sprawl". If anything Detroit created a monster that helped sprawlsville.

I don't think anybody is arguing that the water system is Detroit's "ace in the hole on stopping sprawl." But the alternative, of a "regional in name only" or "privatized" system, very well could be "payback time," water wielded as a political weapon to subsidize sprawl on the backs of urban consumers. Don't think so? It has been that way with roads. Remember the fun and games when Novi's Craig DeRoch, as Michigan speaker of the house, wanted to have all these exclusively suburban hearings on where road funding would go? He said, “We need to build roads where people live, work and pay their taxes. Fixing roads where people used to live, or where we want them to live, will only delay projects which will contribute to economic growth and an improved quality of life for Michigan residents.” In other words, infrastructure money would be politically directed, de jure. [[A private company would do it de facto, for profits.)

4) why are so many of you using the fallacy of "false dichotomy" in this discussion? It's not an all or nothing argument... and yet many of you sound just like "JoAnn Watson" in your "we ain't selling our crown jewels"... all the way to L. Brooks Patterson's suburban rants. Is there no middle ground on what is best for Detroit?

The middle ground is something we should all aim for. And the path to it is not through a power grab, or some "deal" struck under intense political pressure. The idea that this is being done under the banner of regionalism is a slick PR trick, not a genuine call for a united metro Detroit.

5) If this discussion is so polarizing [[as it has become)... then there really is little to help this region... because I see this as a litmus test.

You shouldn't see this as a litmus test. It is a power grab, an excess of judicial activism, and people correctly surmise that this is not democratic at all. You don't pick somebody's pocket and then tell them they're polarizing the debate when they complain...