Ethnic Divisiveness - Unintended Consequences

Headline: Metro Detroit sprawl separates blacks, jobs

• Slavery
• Civil War
• Jim Crow
• Black Activism
• Race Riots
• White Flight
• Racial Card Politics
  
• Decay

The old saw "two wrongs don't make a right" really applies here. Actually a lot more wrongs than two.

Detroit is caught in an outward spiral... a reverse black hole sort of effect... nothing in seems to want to stay.

Eventually, however, the process will reverse... almost naturally. It has to. The city is too strategically located to be abandoned entirely. But it has not yet reached its nadir. Detroit's present population is about 900,000. When it reaches about 750,000, there will be imminent threat of collapse. The state will be forced to step in. At that point, there will be significant opportunities to remake Detroit into a model city.

• Reclamation of large, blighted tracts for development
• buy-out of remaining residents
• tear-down of existing properties
• rezoning to achieve mix of residential, business and public areas
• bring in high-end developers... gated communities...
  
• Tax reformation
• hiatus on property taxes for residents and businesses moving into the city
• overall reduction of taxes residents and businesses must pay in the city
• privatization of city services such as garbage disposal

A more radical approach would be to adopt a Toronto-style form of regional government and land-use, but that would be very difficult. It would, however, integrate the area of Detroit within a larger, more stable government framework. It would eliminate the fundamental differences in taxation and services and let the core area of Detroit take advantage of its inherent geographic advantage. It is probably unworkable because:

• Black Detroiters would have to relinquish significant political power
  
• White suburbanites would have to relinquish insulation and isolation from the problems of Detroit
• Taxes would increase overall
• Racial issues would have to be addressed

Another radical approach would be to reduce Detroit to a 5 mile radius from the foot of Woodward Ave and then create several new cities along the outer ring or let existing cities annex adjacent areas. This would create a more manageable central area that could focus on high-end businesses and more affluent residents. The outer areas would be more traditional smaller cities that could focus on small business and the needs of its residents.



Regardless of the solution... waiting... creating a metropolitan area government... reducing the geography of Detroit... the present situation seems untenable. It is not about "unregulated employment growth" that the Brookings Institution cites. It is the unintended consequences of wrong decisions over many, many decades. Eventually, this area must bite the bullet... or continue to see them flying.