As we’ve witnessed with General Motors, getting smaller is required to survive. Over the past 100 years, GM grew to match the burgeoning demands of a growing country. But just as an ailing senior citizen pays a price for hard living, GM has been ailing for decisions made decades ago. Now it has the opportunity to wipe the slate clean, regroup and get smaller to meet the new demands of the consumer.
Is Detroit any different from this? As the auto industry boomed, our city grew in unison. City borders were expanded, while schools, churches and stores were built to match the increased population. By the 1950’s, Detroit’s population peaked near 2 million around the same time GM’s market share peaked over 50%. They’ve both been in sharp decline ever since. GM is able to eliminate brands, factories, employees and dealerships to get smaller. How does a city get smaller? So far, it doesn’t. We have a city that has capacity for 2 million people, but has less than a million. A plethora of vacant schools, churches and stores have created an urban graveyard. So Detroit needs to do what GM is doing and get small.
Radical? Yes. Possible? Maybe not. But I never thought I would see GM and Chrysler simultaneously in bankruptcy, so I don’t know what’s too radical or not possible anymore. Detroit, Flint and Saginaw have become modern-day ghost towns. They grew in a boom of auto gold, then tapped of its resources, were left to decay. Having so much empty land in this country is a blessing and a curse. The curse is – if something gets old and tired, we can walk away and build new somewhere else. It’s time for our local, state and federal politicians to think completely out-of-the-box and ask the awkward question-- How can we make a city smaller? Why expand further out in the suburbs when we can expand inward. Is it too radical to propose to cut Detroit in half, relocate people to one half and wipe the slate clean with the rest? Keep the historic and still populated neighborhoods, but completely demolish the decadence that permeates throughout. Bring much of it back to the farmland it was 100 years ago, ready to be expanded when necessary. Reincorporate these cities with new charters, city governments, school boards, etc. A fresh look at a newer, cleaner and more consolidated city is intriguing.
I’m not so naïve to think this wouldn’t require massive federal aid. And we all know that the federal government would never take the gamble to throw billions of dollars at problems without guarantees. Or do we? It’s worth a “small” conversation.
1 comment:
A very interesting thought Tom. Like GM & Chrysler, the game is cost vs revenue. Sell no cars, get no revenue, idle factories and too many retirees to support, equal costs out of control. The City of Detroit has been victim of the same phenomenon...people and businesses move out and take tax revenue with them. The big difference in this scenario is the fact that with auto companies there were and are at least some interested parties in those "distressed assets". Conversely, the "distressed assets" would be nothing but acreage that the City would shed and all that would be left to absorb the acreage would be the suburbs...hard to picture Southfield wanting to absorb land with no tax base...not good for the density test! However, the concept of "right sizing" is still not one to be ignored...I am all for having the Brookings Institute or some other "social compact" look deeper. Good blog!
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