A week ago the Mayor proposed seeking voter’s approval to float a $200 million bond issue to remove all blighted homes by 2014. Several questions:

a) How many blighted homes are there in the city? The mayor said that 18,000 blighted homes have been removed since 2014 and that the bond issue would permit razing 20,000 more. The Census Bureau’s 2017 survey counted 99,000 vacant residential units. The 2014 survey of the 300,000 land parcels in the city estimated 40,000 blighted homes and 38,000 more at risk of blight. The 2018 report of the Detroit Removal Blight task force mentioned 85,000 blighted homes and parcels. Mayor Duggan also said that the bond issue would remove abandoned homes. Vacant, abandoned and blighted are very different. What number is correct?

b) How much does it cost to raze a residential structure? Mayor Bing took pride in spending about $7,000 each but, with new environmental concerns, I have seen an estimate of $17,000 per home razed in Detroit If $17, 000 is correct, $200 million will raze only 11,800 blighted homes, not the 20,000 the mayor suggests.

c)The voters must approve this increased in the city’s indebtedness. The newspapers are not clear but they suggest that it may involve about 9 mills. However, there are also reports that the city has funds that will be used to pay for much of the principal and interest on these blight removal bonds. Apparently, most homeowners will not see their tax rate go up by 9 mills. Detroit already has a very high millage rate, much higher than most suburbs. If you spend, $175,000 for a home in Detroit, your annual property tax may be about $6,000. For the same expenditure in Warren, the property tax will be $4,800; $3,700 in Northville, $3,900 in Farmington Hills an $2,800 in Rochester Hills.

d) Jason Hackworth has a forthcoming book, Governing the Deprived City. He devotes three chapters to Detroit. He present evidence convincing him that if a city razes blighted homes but does not put the vacant land into productive use, the blight removal does almost nothing to raise property values or stabilize population in the neighborhoods where the blight was removed. Blight removal seems important to me but there is a literature saying that it may not be a productive use of tax dollars.