Bing Bringing Back DetroitWorks. Maybe This Time People Will Listen?

[corktownyuppie]

Yeah, I've already reached that conclusion. I'm a realist and pragmatist BTW, but I also believe one can do the politically impossible while remaing realistic [[I.E. residency requirement, lottery proposal, etc.). This one is not the case.

Detroit as is [[a major american city) is dead. There's no way possible I can see this not being the case.

Well, yes. Detroit as a million-person city has been dead for years in my mind. Frankly, even though I'm a big Detroit cheerleader and believer, I've always thought the "shrinking process" was one which should've been started 10 years ago. It was always inevitable, and it would've been less painful to do over time.

The future, more likely than not, will probably be a 5 sq. mi. city of roughly 100,000 people. Problem is there are cities that size all over the country, nothing particularly special about them to lure people and attention to them from the outside. I would also have to question too how long we can continue to support all of these cultural institutions and major league sports teams as well. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of us losing the Pistons at the very least. Good news is that it means we'll have quite a densely packed little town [[a big brother to Hamtramck perhaps?).

First, I think 5 sq. miles, 100,000 population, and growing, is a much better place to be than 700,000 and shrinking. We could get rid of the failing neighborhoods and condense into a managable city at this size. Ann Arbor is 100,000. I was imagining more like 250,000-300k, which would still be sizable. We could re-write the Detroit future as one of re-invention, entrepreneurship, and transformation.

Second, I don't think we will lose any of the cultural institutions or sports teams. We aren't losing 600,000 residents because they're moving to Cleveland or Chicago. We're losing them to inner ring suburbs like Redford, Warren, Harper Woods, Southfield, Grosse Pointe, and Livonia.

Major cultural institutions will likely be under regional control and regional financing so that the cost to pay for these jewels [[and the responsibility and privilege of managing them) could be spread equitably across the entire area.

The Pistons and Tigers aren't going anywhere. I'd imagine that revenue from Detroit residents makes up but a fraction of their income.

A big brother to Hamtramck, but one which is vibrant, healthy, growing, filled with historical architecture, filled with world class services and venues...I think that's a story that might even make it easier to attract business into the state -- even the city.

[313WX]

Second, I don't think we will lose any of the cultural institutions or sports teams. We aren't losing 600,000 residents because they're moving to Cleveland or Chicago. We're losing them to inner ring suburbs like Redford, Warren, Harper Woods, Southfield, Grosse Pointe, and Livonia.

Relative to the rest of the country this region has been shrinking since the 1970s.

It won't show up on absolute numbers, but the fact of the matter is we don't have as much relevance to the country as a whole as we did when Detroit was at its peak [[the region).

However, 48% of our younger people are leaving the region. That means 48% fewer people to re-produce another generation, assuming we can't bring in new people from the outside [[and we're not so far). So the absolute decline for Metro Detroit will start to show as the baby boomers die off in the next couple of decades. The region's prime is behind it.