"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
1. Giuliani-style crime control in city, but with one major change: allow business owners to carry guns at all times and remove all restrictions on gun ownership for non-criminals. Pass legislation stating that ANY gun death resulting from said “victim” trying to steal from or kill another person is NOT a crime.
2. Expel all citizens who have recieved welfare for more than 24 of the last 36 months.
3. Abandoned buildings must be torn down or fully remodeled within 18 months.
4. Reduce city income tax by 40%. Create business-friendly tax structure.
5. Call a spade a spade.
No, not neccessarily... you see cities don’t shrink.. their populations do.
The demand for services do not shrink proportionally with people drain.
Look at an arial photo of neighborhoods in detroit. There are blocks now, with only 3 houses left, on all 4 streets of the block... at one point that block would have 5 or 10 houses per side. Now all are gone but 3... but those same 4 streets need maintained, cleaned, plowed, etc etc etc... just as if that block still had 20-40 houses.
The problem with a declining city is, while the population declines, the geographical area doesn’t. Yes, less garbage needs picked up, but the same number of miles need to be driven to do so... etc etc etc.. You lose the economies of scale when you have a population decline....
I am not defending the liberal policies of Detroit and Michigan in general...they have helped contribute to the state and cities decline... however changing those alone will not bring back Detroit.
JOBS, and only JOBS will make Detroit a destination, and there is NO incentive to make the Detroit or even Michigan a destination for them.
Right to work status, lower taxes and better overall business climate will help, but thanks to “free trade” and the exportation of manufacturing that continues unabated, Detroit will never EVER be able to be remotely what it was.
Policy changes can help the state and the city, but I am not sure if the city will EVER be able to be self sufficient again without literally kicking out geographical sections of itself, and physically shrinking the city limits.