While Detroit is bankrupt, another downtown housing devevelopment is announced

[emu steve]

The "trend" in urban planning - if you call it that -- is to have two societies - the uber rich [[Manhattan NY) who can afford the million dollar condos -- and the outer area [[i.e. the boroughs) comprised of the working and middle class. There's a plan out there somewhere that shows how this will look for Detroit. Almost like Atlantic City, where the casinos are in a patch of area separated from the run-down neighborhoods.

I think your post is overstated but I understand the point.

I always like to refer to D.C. as a case study of a central city which went through hard times [[e.g., crime, bad government, decreasing population, etc.) and then turned it around big time.

One thing about D.C. is there are more and more affluent, professionals, etc. who pay large amounts of taxes which helps support D.C. government and those who are financially marginalized. High income people in D.C. live in the expensive neighborhoods but are now more and more have been moving into areas which formerly were crime ridden [[e.g., 14th street which was the scene of the 1968 riots, near the Nationals Park, etc. etc.).

The difference in Detroit is that there are so few affluent, professionals, etc. that there isn't enough of them to produce a tax base to support the city.

Producing 'trendy' neighborhoods and getting those young professionals who pay abundant taxes but don't require much city services is what is needed to help stabilize the city.

I haven't looked at the data, but I suspect one of the big problems with Detroit has been the declining tax base over many decades.

Detroit is learning that one can't cut, cut, cut... At some point tax revenues to the city need to rise.

Detroit needs to 'grow' its way out of this mess which is why what Gilbert and others are doing is so important.