How do you fix Detroit?

It's a good idea, but would anyone really invest? Detroit has such a stigma, I have a hard time believing that people from around the country (or world) would travel there. This comes from a Michigander who lives not too far from the city.

There's a lot of intelligent commentary about it on the local public broadcast WDET, with a great host Craig Fahle. They have a live stream, if you were really interested.

One thing is for certain, it truly is depressing. Maybe it could return to farmland? lol

Spacer, would you consider reading my post in the "Looked great, I wish it were more" thread? I have an idea to revitalize which isn't as far fetched as it would sound if I just dropped it here in a couple of sentences. TY

with all the acreage, why not make more of it farmland? it's soil that is possibly in better shape than most areas, and they can ship to locations in the midwest.

just keep monsanto out.

Simple. Wall off the whole filthy town, and make it the world's most brutal prison.

I'm not sure it should be changed into farmland unless we knew the soil was safe. But I do believe very large tracts of vacant buildings should be razed, concrete roads should be removed. Let the land go back to nature. Plant trees, plant prairies. It's too much land for the city to provide services. It's a permanently shrunken city. I agree people should be given incentives to relocate into strategically-chosen denser populated areas of the city. It might be emotionally tough to think that entire huge old neighborhoods just need to be razed and turned into prairieland. Maybe wildlife and bird preserves. Both my parents grew up in the city when it was a great place to live. But those are only memories now and people need to leave them in the past and make some radical changes for the future.

I am about to post one of the most unpopular suggestions ever on how to fix Detroit. Ready? Here it goes.

There's a reason why there's a lack of jobs in Detroit and why everything there is in shambles. It's the people. I guarantee you that if we were to replace 90% of the people in Detroit with---say---hardworking Chinese immigrants, the housing prices will spring up over night. New small businesses would rapidly open up. Crime would be reduced. People from other places would move to Detroit and the city will experience a renaissance that has never been seen before. Nothing would have changed but the people.

But of course, you're not going to kick out the people already living there. What I would do is wall-off Detroit with only a couple of ways to leave and enter. I would then install outdoor cameras on every block and have every person who want to live in Detroit be implanted with a chip that only tracks their GPS location and nothing more. Visitors to Detroit would need to register to get into the city and wear a tracker around their neck at all times. What's the purpose of all this you may ask? Well, if you can eliminate violent crime to almost zero and can claim the title of America's safest city or even safest city in the world, people are going to willingly move to Detroit. Thugs who commit violent crimes do it because they think they can get away with it. But if someone is shot or raped under my version of Detroit, police would only have to see who was in proximity of the victim's tracker at the time of the crime or where the body was found and use surveillance footage from cameras as further evidence as to who done it. All this will add up to be the ultimate deterrence in stopping crime before it starts. Why would you ever shoot someone if you know you'll be ID'd with little effort in a matter of a hour or less?

When crime drastically goes down, real gentrification will take place. People will want to move in. Not just flower planting hipsters, but couples with children who want to move to Detroit for the still cheap real-estate and the safety there. These people will be the ones who'll create the businesses and be the pillar of their communities. They will be the ones who are going to lay down the foundation for further generations to come.

Now I know what you're all thinking: "It's oppressing, it's totalitarian, it's 1984!". Listen, you're already carrying a tracker in the form of a smartphone anyway; The Feds could track you down through your phone's GPS if they really wanted to. Yes, people hate surveillance cameras. It's even politically correct to hate on them. But if you think about it, they probably brought more criminals to justice and done more good for society than bad. In fact, I'm betting that you or someone you know have a surveillance system setup to protect a business.

So to sum it up, I think a safe place to live and the abundance of cheap real estate (within city limits no less) is more than enticing to bring people and jobs to Detroit, even at the cost of each other's GPS whereabouts and outdoor privacy. That is a trade off I would do and that's how I'd fix Detroit.

wages globally makes it more sense for these companies to open outside of the US, the one guy said it best. The standard of living is going down and has been for a while. The unions and their inflated wages had something to do with making american goods way more expensive. It sucks but this why it's never good to be at the bottom of society, where your skills are so easily moved away by corporate decisions. I loved the part with the artists where moving in and living cheaply is a big part of helping yourself to succeed. It could be a great place for cheap startups to operate from.