'The Detroit Project' - - New Republic article

Two urban scholars at the Brookings Institution have a piece in The New Republic this week about research there and at the London School of Economics for a joint project on older industrial cities.

As Dave Bing works on a "crisis turnaround plan," they suggest how changes pushed by a reformist mayor in Turin, Italy, could be applied in Detroit -- with support from Washington.

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The federal government could support the physical regeneration of Detroit by footing the bill for the development of a new city plan focused on reconfiguring land uses and economic activity around the reality of population loss. More radically, the feds could overhaul that tired cliché of urban policy: the community-development block grant. They should require Detroit and other cities to use these grants [[and other federal, state, and local resources) for reclaiming, reconfiguring, and reusing vacant and abandoned land and housing.

The federal government could make Detroit a pilot city for land recycling and demolition projects. Scores of other industrial cities have too much land and outdated infrastructure. The foreclosure-smacked boomtowns of the sunbelt are also grappling with their own version of this legacy of excess.

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Link again.

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The federal government could support the physical regeneration of Detroit by footing the bill for the development of a new city plan......

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Yep, all it takes is a little political "back-scratching" and a stroke of the pen for it to become the law of the land and before you know it, the "Man with the Cash" will be showing up in Detroit for photo ops with the governor and the mayor.

The reality is that the federal government would have to borrow even more money that it does not have in order to do what is being suggested, since our legislators have shown no propensity for reducing total federal spending.

Therefore, it is not the federal government that is "footing the bill", it's the future taxpayers and citizens - you, your children, grandchildren, etc. - who will eventually have to "foot the bill" through higher federal taxes and/or a lower standard of living.

A friend sent a link to this article this morning, the following is my response:
Interesting article. I think Detroit in the future will be one of the greenest and most sustainable cities in the US. I can see a time in the not too distant future where the open space will be an asset for the city. I already see it in Woodbridge, SW Detroit, and Corktown. I think a more pressing problem though is the schools. You and I know lots of folks who love the city but had to go when their kids became old enough to go to school, and frankly I don't blame 'em. Think about what the D would be if we had the best school system in the state. What if parents in West Bloomfield were lying about residency to get their kids into Detroit schools?
We also need to change the paradigm about being the motor city.

Not to worry, it won't happen. There's no political will for this sort of thing in the country, and the Detroit area will remain, as with all urban areas in this country, a net contributor to the federal government that sends more out in taxes than it has any hope of ever getting back.