Rebuilding a Ruined City

Many are warning that the United States could become the next Greece. But there’s no need to look across the ocean to see a poorly-governed area that’s deep in debt and crumbling. Just look to Detroit.

That city was once the picture of American industrial might. {snip}

Now, though, the Motor City is collapsing in every conceivable way.

The unemployment rate is 18 percent, meaning almost one of every five people is out of work. A big reason for that is that the city’s schools have failed. Just 7 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in reading. Only a handful of Detroit residents (12 percent) have a college degree. Yet Detroit teachers are the best paid in the nation, the Mackinac Center for Policy Policy says, when their pay is adjusted for purchasing power.

Meanwhile, Detroit is $327 million in the red and has no credible plan to get back on its feet. That’s why Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder recently appointed an emergency manager. Kevyn Orr has 18 months to try to save the city. Even though he has broad power to sell assets and renegotiate contracts, his job will be difficult.

These days there’s more work to be done tearing homes down than building new ones. An executive at Pulte Homes has set up a non-profit to do just that in Detroit. By reversing the building process, it can remove an empty house for just $5,000, half what it would cost the city government to do so.

In fact, government is more a hindrance than a help. “If the government could fix the problem, they would,” urban artist Jenenne Whitfield told National Review. “Everything we know that’s historically held up this city is broken. It’s a bit of a radical way of thinking . . . [but] our government has to change. It has to go back to what it was, going all the way back to the Constitution.”

A non-profit group called Motor City Blight Busters that has taken down some 1,500 houses. There are “a lot of rules and regulations that relate to removing property,” the group’s founder said. “The government [has been] interfering with our ability and others’ ability” to remove blight.

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Detroit also needs to get a handle on crime. {snip}

Help may be on the way, though, following some common sense political reforms.

In a statewide election in Michigan last year, voters soundly defeated Proposal 2, a measure that would have made union collective bargaining a right and given collective bargaining agreements the force of law. {snip}

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It’s possible that free-marketers will eventually rebuild on the ruins of Detroit. For now, though, it serves as a cautionary tale. Even a city with everything going for it can collapse under the weight of bad economic policies. The rest of us must learn from Detroit, not repeat its mistakes at the national level.