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发帖数: 29846 | 1 MarketWatchBy Barry Wood | MarketWatch – 16 hours ago
Abandoned buildings abound in Detroit, which has lost much of its
population and many of its dreams. But the city refuses to give up.
DETROIT (MarketWatch) — Drive the 5.4 miles along Michigan Avenue from
downtown Detroit to Dearborn and it’s hard to find a single strip mall
where city residents can shop. The vacuous corridor passes the empty lot
where Tiger Stadium once stood and the decaying skeleton of what was once
the grandest train station between New York and Chicago. Amid the abandoned
structures, only the occasional filling station, bar or bodega peeks out
from a gutted landscape.
How, one wonders, can this city be brought back to life?
Last April, Detroit’s brave, well-intentioned Mayor Dave Bing and Michigan
’s pragmatic Republican Gov. Rick Snyder agreed to transfer final say on
the city’s devastated finances to a financial officer and advisory board.
With default on Detroit’s $10 billion debt looming, the consent agreement
forestalled the harsher alternative of the governor appointing an emergency
manager, as has happened in Flint, Pontiac and Benton Harbor.
Bing, a 68-year-old former basketball star who succeeded disgraced Mayor
Kwame Kilpatrick in 2009, had run out of choices. “From my position,” he
said, “I had two options: Sign the consent agreement or let an emergency
manager come in. We opted to sign the agreement.”
Reuters A new housing project near downtown Detroit shows that the city may
still have a bright future.
Detroit’s financial stabilization agreement requires a balanced budget,
something it hasn’t had in 10 years. With its credit rating cut to double-C
this year, Detroit can’t sell bonds to cover deficits in its general fund.
For the fiscal year that began July 1, the city’s overall budget is $2.6
billion, a 16% cut from the year before. Assistance from the state is
projected to rise slightly but is down substantially from 2000. Pummeled by
continuing economic decline, the city’s other revenue sources — taxes on
income, gaming, and property — are all down.
To narrow the deficit Bing announced that city workers — including
firefighters and police — would take a 10% pay cut. Bing defended the
measure as tough but necessary. Since Detroit can no longer borrow, he said,
“without action the city will shut down.”
Bing also plans to cut city employment by 20%, or 2,500 jobs. Earlier this
month he embraced a consultant’s recommendation that the bloated water and
sewerage department cut its work force by 80%. Detroit’s powerful public-
service unions are enraged and mounting legal challenges.
For his part, the governor says the state will help stabilize Detroit
finances. Snyder, a venture capitalist who once headed Gateway computer, was
elected governor in 2010 in his first bid for public office. Promising to
reinvent government, Snyder has registered progress in turning around
battered state finances, aided by a recovering auto industry. He says the
same thing can happen in Detroit. “The city and state,” he says, “must
show outsiders they can work together to solve problems.”
Detroit’s financial disaster is the result of fiscal neglect while the city
’s tax base and population were falling precipitously. Detroit’s finances
have been hammered by the 40% downsizing of the auto industry, the loss of
300,000 jobs in southeast Michigan, and a home foreclosure rate that has
been among the highest in the country.
Once the nation’s fourth largest city, Detroit now ranks 18th, behind
Indianapolis, Columbus and Charlotte. Its population has slipped below 700,
000 and demographers say as many as 1,000 people continue to leave each
month. Detroit’s population is down by two-thirds from 1950 and has fallen
by a quarter of a million since 2000. While white flight accounted for the
early decline, in recent years Detroit’s black middle class has joined the
move to the suburbs or out of Michigan.
The staggering population loss, combined with the rise of charter schools,
has translated into a 67% decline in Detroit’s public-school enrollment
over the past decade. Many underutilized schools are being closed, staff is
being reduced and teachers last year took a 10% pay cut. Detroit’s schools
are already overseen by an emergency manager.
The most alarming effect of the population exodus is the huge inventory of
abandoned and derelict buildings stretched out over a city that
geographically is larger than Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco combined.
Entire neighborhoods are hollowed out. Detroit has from 40,000 to 70,000
abandoned buildings, many of which have become havens for drugs and other
criminal activity. Bing promises to tear down 10,000 buildings by the end of
next year.
Cash shortages and the challenge of a poorer city providing services over
such a vast area led Bing to float the idea of relocating residents into
clusters where safety and quality could be assured. Public opposition forced
a retreat and Bing’s much touted Detroit Works initiative now emphasizes a
mere upgrading of three demonstration neighborhoods.
With 200,000 abandoned parcels that collectively occupy a third of city
territory, serious consideration is being given to reforestation and small-
scale farming, once abandoned structures are cleared.
Grim as the outlook appears, there are clear signs of turnaround. Downtown
areas adjacent to Comerica Park, Ford Field and along the riverfront are
becoming vibrant. Retail and residential activity increasingly radiates out
from the core with rents rising and young entrepreneurs moving in.
A Whole Foods supermarket is under construction near the Art Institute and
Wayne State University. On the northwest side, 900 jobs are expected from a
new shopping mall. Snyder has reached agreement with the Canadian government
for a new bridge connecting Windsor and Detroit, promising many
construction jobs.
An optimistic scenario would see the odd couple Bing and Snyder cooperating
to avert a Detroit bankruptcy.
Bing, up for re-election next year, has bravely challenged city council
militants who oppose any cooperation with a Republican governor. Snyder, who
prides himself on being a problem solver, promises to be a supportive
partner. He recently asked a Detroit audience, “how do we get people
excited about Detroit?” We need a city, he said, “where people can raise
their families safely, where they can have an education.” |
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