Long but interesting article about public meetings held by the Mayor of Detroit. There is stuff in here that will make right wing types go ballistic but the bulleted points in the middle of the article are food for thought.
Detroit: “There Is NO ‘Plan’!”

http://countercurrents.org/stephens240910.htm

Excerpts:
Between September 14 and 22, 2010, Detroit experienced five extraordinary, well-attended public meetings on the subject of land use and related public policy issues. ....

But in their fear of real Detroiters, the organizers failed to offer any concrete ideas about community economic development and land, democracy and planning, environment, economy or justice – or indeed, any substantive ideas about much of anything.

Detroit has unparalleled assets for pursuing a strategy of asset-based development in the 21st century economy: great water resources, an incredible amount of open and relatively affordable urban land, and an enviable history and culture. There is virtually no equivalent example today of underutilized potential. This is a strong, dynamic community of survivors who want to do more than merely survive: we want Detroiters to thrive in the new century.

The first of these five public meetings demonstrated how out of touch the city’s official leadership is, when they didn’t realize that a call for public input toward radical change would draw a thousand people or so to Greater Grace Temple. They completely failed to understand the desperation and hunger for new vision and leadership in our communities. Moreover, the final cluelessness of Detroit’s business leadership consists in not recognizing that this time the “business cycle” isn’t going to ride to their rescue. This time it will be ordinary people, working at the grassroots and effectively challenging officials through democratic conversations, confrontations, and movement building power who – like our great-grandparents in the CIO during the Great Depression - will make the necessary changes in the face of massive transformations entailed by the crises all around us. Unless and until these officials join us in meaningful democratic conversations about genuine social change and justice, their “Detroit Works” project is doomed to failure.