Thought Experiment: Relocating the State Capital to Detroit

[Bucket]

Michigan's state capital was moved from Detroit to Lansing in 1847.

What would be the pros and cons of relocating the state capital back to Detroit?

[ghettopalmetto]

Michigan's state capital was moved from Detroit to Lansing in 1847.

What would be the pros and cons of relocating the state capital back to Detroit?

One-stop corruption shopping!

[Detroitnerd]

Michigan's state capital was moved from Detroit to Lansing in 1847.

What would be the pros and cons of relocating the state capital back to Detroit?

Well, why were our state capitals relegated to cowtowns in the first place?

It's a pastoral tendency in America goes back to the 1800s, to Emerson and Thoreau and on back to Jefferson. Our forefathers believed that putting capital cities in major centers of commerce would derange government in favor of business, so they put state capitol buildings in small cities. There were other reasons then as well: Remember, when Lansing was made capital, it wasn't quite as easy as it is today to get around. To put a capital in the center of a state made more sense than, say, in the lower corner of the state. We can't make the same argument today in our age of air travel and modern roads.

I read a great piece of writing arguing against putting capitals in cowtowns by James Howard Kunstler, who complained that those huge government buildings look out of place and rob big cities of monumental architecture. As it turns out, big business would hold just as much sway over states' policies [[through modern lobbying, ALEC, Koch brothers, etc.), while small-town prejudices and antipathies against cities hold stubborn sway.

To varying degrees, places like Ann Arbor and Lansing have perpetual economies thanks to the infusion of government money, and they are not ashamed of it. Why not Detroit? I look at the exception to this rule, Boston [[which is the largest city and the capital) and don't see too many drawbacks.

The state would never allow this, of course. And I have absolutely no idea why. It's just a total mystery why the outstaters from all over Michigan would refuse to convene in Detroit. Just thinking it over and I get a big nothing. I guess we'll never get to the bottom of that.

[DetroitPlanner]

That would cost tens of billions of dollars. It would also alienate the Northern and Western parts of the state. For as much as we complain about the State being too parochial and against the Detroit area, this would make it worse. I vote no.

[Brian1979]

Lansing is the closest major city in the state to the center of population for the state. It's also more centrally located than Detroit is. The center of the state would be the Cadillac area when you include the UP, with just the Lower Peninsula it's St. Louis which is about an hour north of Lansing.

[mwilbert]

Obviously wherever the state government is would get some economic benefit from that, but moving it would be hugely expensive and wouldn't do Lansing much good. Ignoring the part where no one would agree to it in the first place.

[Ray1936]

Let's move it to Copper Harbor. Then no one will want to run for the state legislature and we'll all be better off.

[casscorridor]

Better idea: build high speed rail line to Lansing and allow the angry masses in Detroit to make an easy visit to their representatives.

[Jason]

Detroitnerds got the history right.


imo it had the opposite of the intended effect. Putting capitals far away makes it harder for common people to be civicly engaged, whether that means going to a rally of some kind, or simply walking past the buildings sometimes. "Lansing" or "government" become this kind of abstract distant thing, and I think physical proximity can counter that. Big business doesn't care because it's very easy and worthwhile for them to have a presence in distant places for lobbying purposes. It deters common people but not big business.

And the economic side isn't very good either. Cities are one of those things that's greater than the sum of its parts. Everything that exists in Lansing would have contributed to the civic vitality of Detroit.


iirc when the decision was being made the two options were Lansing and Ann Arbor, which were both Podunks. One was going to be the capital and one was going to get a university. imo, the only two cities in question should have been Detroit and Grand Rapids.

[Gistok]

Actually the competition to be the new state capital was between Lansing and [[historic) Marshall MI.

[coracle]

This is the stuff nightmares are made of. Moving a $50 B annual budget to a town that can't handle a $1 B annual budget.

[compn]

i think it would be a good idea.
it would probably kill lansing tho. not that anyone would mind.

[Hermod]

If you look at 50 states and compare their capitols to their largest cities, in the majority of cases, they are not the same. The major exceptions are Georgia [[Atlanta) and Massachusetts [[Boston).

Look at the other larges states, their capitols, and their largest cities:

New York [[Albany/New York City)
Pennsylvania [[Harrisburg/Philadelphia)
Illinois [[Springfield/Chicago)
Ohio [[Columbus/Cleveland)
California [[Sacramento/Los Angeles)
Texas [[Austin/Dallas)
Florida [[Tallahassee/Miami)

[renf]

Detroit was the capitol of the Michigan territory. Why was it not selected
as the state capitol? Detroit was a focal point for the US invasion of Canada in the War of 1812 and the successful British occupied Detroit from August 1812
until September 1813. In the United States, in the late 1830s, there was fear about another war with the English. Indeed, the Maine state legislature tried to declare such a was since they want the Saint Croix, not the Penobscot, River to be their northern border. These concerns prompted Congress to built Fort Wayne since it was presumed that, if there were a war, the British would invade through Detroit.

After the new state legislature met in 1837, they concluded that Detroit would not be a good site for the state capitol since the British might invade. They agreed that the capitol could remain in Detroit for some time but
insisted that it be moved elsewhere. The folks in Ann Arbor bid for the capitol and set aside the land that is now the quadrangle on the U of M Campus. They also named a major street, State Street, in hopes of getting the state capitol. But various lobbing efforts in the state legislature led to the selection of remote, rural Lansing as the capitol. Ann Arbor got the dormant university that Judge Woodward and Father Richard founded in 1817 and
the legislature provided some funds for its revival.

[Hypestyles]

wasn't the University of Michigan once based in Detroit early on?

[coracle]

Looks like there were long sighted Statesmen in charge in those days [[1847) rather than Politicians that can't see past the end of their noses, and they made decisions for all the people rather than party members and Unions. Or we [[Michigan) were just lucky and dodged the bullet and ended up with Lansing.

[Detroitnerd]

Looks like there were long sighted Statesmen in charge in those days [[1847) rather than Politicians that can't see past the end of their noses, and they made decisions for all the people rather than party members and Unions. Or we [[Michigan) were just lucky and dodged the bullet and ended up with Lansing.

No, they were a bunch of provincial hicks who feared cities and wanted to roll in manure with their illiterate constituents.

Just like today ...

[Hermod]

By the same token, why move the capitol of the United States from a great city like New York to a fever-haunted swamp on the Potomac?

[Detroitnerd]

If it's good enough for the U.K., France, Italy, China, Japan, and pretty much every other country in the world, why not? Even [[West) Germany rushed to move its capital from Bonn to Berlin.

Oh, I forgot. The perpetual infusion of money that comes with running a capital or a state university is the sacred entitlement of the boonies, so lardheaded, regressive, racist outlanders get subsidized -- and then complain about all them blacks in the city eatin' up THEIR tax dollars!

[coracle]

If it's good enough for the U.K., France, Italy, China, Japan, and pretty much every other country in the world, why not? Even [[West) Germany rushed to move its capital from Bonn to Berlin.

Oh, I forgot. The perpetual infusion of money that comes with running a capital or a state university is the sacred entitlement of the boonies, so lardheaded, regressive, racist outlanders get subsidized

You got it right Go wipe the spittle up from your childish apoplectic hate rant and get real. Then ask yourself why any one would want their money being handled by an unstable person like youself.

[Detroitnerd]

You got it right Go wipe the spittle up from your childish apoplectic hate rant and get real. Then ask yourself why any one would want their money being handled by an unstable person like youself.

Just yankin' you and Hermod's chain. Sorry, we can't all be suburban triumphalists!

[Hermod]

If it's good enough for the U.K., France, Italy, China, Japan, and pretty much every other country in the world, why not? Even [[West) Germany rushed to move its capital from Bonn to Berlin.

And Brazil moved their capitol from Rio to Brasilia [[really the boondocks)
Australia has their capitol in Canberra rather than one of the large cities.
The Netherlands has three capitols [[they split up different gummint fucntions between the three cities).

Czar Peter the Great moved the capitol of Russia from Moscow to St Petersburg [[aka Petrograd or Leningrad) . The commies moved it back to Moscow a few hundred years later.

[Detroitnerd]

And Brazil moved their capitol from Rio to Brasilia [[really the boondocks)
Australia has their capitol in Canberra rather than one of the large cities.
The Netherlands has three capitols [[they split up different gummint fucntions between the three cities).

Czar Peter the Great moved the capitol of Russia from Moscow to St Petersburg [[aka Petrograd or Leningrad) . The commies moved it back to Moscow a few hundred years later.

Ah, yes, Hermod, but those are the EXCEPTIONS. And they're not all that exceptional, frankly.

By the way, if you're going to cherry-pick a few examples from history to support your thesis, I think you can do better. You're trying to compare the United States, which has the overwhelming majority of its state capitals in small cities, and whose capital, Washington, is its 24th largest city, to the world, you should have discarded a few of your examples. To say St. Petersburg was some kind of small town is not accurate. By 1900 it was the eighth largest city in the world, and the LARGEST CITY IN RUSSIA. Similarly, Brasilia is the FOURTH LARGEST CITY IN BRAZIL, a little smaller than Chicago proper. Wow, some boondocks they have out there!

Anyway, why is the United States so different from other countries. Gosh, you know, maybe they appreciate and invest in their cities, instead of fearing and loathing them and being satisfied with tooling from strip mall to strip mall in their gas buggies!

[Hermod]

Brasilia only became the fourth largest city in Brazil when the capitol was moved there. Prior to that, it was a little dot on the edge of civilization. No one could figure why they moved the capitol there.

[sumas]

Oh good Lord, we have had enough idiot local politicians. Who would want more!