Detroit Can Either Reinvent or Wither…I Vote For Reinventing!

My analysis of Detroit’s problem is that the roots of racism that exists in all of America was uniquely exacerbated in this city. For the past 40 years, Detroit has been in a stubborn conflict of philosophies that unless is finally resolved will keep the city from a much needed recovery. In fact, this deadlock has now thrust the city into a crisis of immense proportions.

One side has attempted to create a conclave of gentrification to push through the malaise, to grow Detroit in spite of the frustrating residue of the city’s blue-collar era. The other side continues to try to find an economic solution to the city’s problems despite a school system that has failed miserably and community that commits crimes against itself at appalling rates.

My analysis suggests that no city government could have turned around Detroit’s depopulation without resolving the city’s institutional racism, which until now, has been a suppressed issue that acts out in violence. And my analysis also suggests that no attempt to gentrify Detroit out of its decay will have the growth rate to overcome the city’s budget issues. Even if the city’s small growth of last year were tripled to maximize the potential of the millennials, it would take a quarter century to grow out of the city’s financial crisis. The city’s infrastructure and pension costs are just too great for any realistic gentrification population growth to meet the city’s growing needs for revenue, even if we ignore for the moment the violent reaction and tax collection difficulties that would accrue to such an apartheid policy.

At some point, the city is going to have to find a way to reinvest in the city’s existing population as part of a holistic solution. Mr Gilbert has done a masterful job of buying up real estate and creating a vision of what Detroit could become. He just has no viable pathway to get there without bringing along the city’s population. Detroit has 620,000 African Americans spread throughout who are part of the equation. Their history is one of oppression, defiance, and internal struggle in the face of exodus.

Social safety net policies will not placate Detroit. Only a solution that builds a real economy that includes the current population will work. Yet few businesses remain in the United States that can provide a living wage to a population whose educational system has failed them so miserably. A radical departure from the status quo is what will be required to turn around Detroit.

My suggestion is that the gentrifiers who are putting their hopes in Kevin Orr to bust apart the city and start over should stop thinking that this path has any chance of success. Can Detroit gerrymander its geography and carve out the parts of the city that would take decades to recover under a build out scenario, returning blighted areas to the historical township structure of unincorporated American lands? That scenario is vastly unlikely politically or realistically, and no other city would annex blighted sections of Detroit. The emergency manager will not choose such a path. Detroit must face its demons.

Yet, with the right strategy, one that is inclusive of all its citizens, Detroit can actually recover quite quickly, and in so doing, Detroit can provide the rest of the country a blueprint to find the gold buried in all of our inner cities, our people. The strategy must overcome the catch 22 circular arguments I have listed above. No current political or economic policy exists to do so. It must be invented. As such, the paradigm shift that is necessary to create such a political invention will be called radical by some.

Radical or not, with no other viable alternative in sight, Detroit can either reinvent or wither. My vote is for re-invention.

This emergency manager phase for Detroit Should not be about loss or regret but about hope and rebirth

Yet an important phase of rebirth must be letting go…When memories of what Detroit was, or visions of what one hoped it might become are released, then we can be free to see Detroit as it is and to plan for what it can really become.

After the economic burdens of Detroit’s collapsing past are lifted, the city must be ready to finally let go of old paradigms that have kept Detroit from transforming. We are free to state the starting point.

* Detroit is not safe

Detroit will initially still be a city that few will want to move to or to invest in until a clear path is created for Detroit to grow and to prosper. In fact, many will still want to leave if they can if crime is not dramatically reduced. But Detroit can become a very livable city if opportunity replaces hopelessness and if strong incentives for a prosperous future are introduced for newcomers. These are not just platitudes but very achievable goals.

* Detroit is blighted

After Mr. Orr and Detroit’s leadership make the tough choices, Detroit will still not be the vibrant city that downtown represents it to be. But it will have pockets of strong neighborhoods and it will continue to craft a fairly clean, brownfield canvas from which to build a future. Blight will continue to be cleared. Building exteriors, yards, sidewalks and vacant lots can be vigorously maintained by incentive and enforcement, main thoroughfares can be maintained to represent Detroit’s future, key growth centers can be enhanced to seed growth.

* Detroit is spread out and unwieldy

Detroit has three times the land that Walt Disney World had when it acquired 47 square miles in Central Florida. Speckled throughout the city, Detroit’s has liabilities but many can be transformed into assets. And Detroit’s land is one of its biggest assets. The West was settled by the draw of land. Given a well-defined land use vision, clear principles of growth, strong incentives for investment, and a culture recreated to support growth, Detroit can rapidly emerge, and positive signs of growth can simultaneously spread throughout its various neighborhoods, while highlighting the call for entrepreneurs, innovators and industry to return to Detroit’s key economic centers.

* Detroit is Gentrified

In 140 square miles, Detroit’s master plan has room for gentrification. It has room for high tech, for entrepreneurial centers, for commerce, education, and art. But Detroit is already the residence for 700,000 people, many of whom have been the forgotten ones, downtrodden, unemployed, poorly educated. Many have experienced the violence of Detroit. Most are hoping for opportunity and a better life.

Many of Detroit’s residents travel outside the city each day to give of their talents. Most can produce viable products and services right in Detroit, once employed. Yet, from Detroit’s existing population, workers must be matched to work they can readily perform. High wages for low skilled work is gone. Yet, the paradigm that living wages for low skill work cannot exist in an America that must compete in the world, that paradigm must be obliterated to put Detroiters back to work. There is a way.

* Detroit has stagnated in stalemate for decades.

A dynasty of political structures that preserved Detroit’s old economy must give way to equitable sharing of political powers for a new economy. A workforce power structure of high union wages for low skill work must give way to an economy that provides a living wage for low skill work and a city that promotes education and training for higher wage opportunities. Old prejudices that allowed Detroit’s neighborhoods to be underserved must be isolated through economic incentives that change behavior until prejudiced views can be reduced by stereotypes of a new economy.

* Detroit is isolated

A metropolitan region that has walled off communities from one another must be reconnected and interconnected to allow regional collaboration and regional growth. Solutions that can bring innovators, investors, and employers, those key components of growing economies, into the heart of Detroit will require agreement from regional, state, and federal governments, as well as support from entrepreneurs, local, national, and international industries to be dynamically effective.

As age-old paradigms are let go, Anticipation and new expectations can be formed to start rebuilding Detroit’s identity and to create a productive economy that provides jobs and a thriving future for all.