Detroit Goes Baghdad

Long known for its war-zone like neighborhoods, Detroit is taking on the complexion of a bombed out, conquered land where the infrastructure has disappeared and residents are being forced to relocate.

What would the next major economic meltdown do to other major metropolitan areas?

Detroit Mayor Bing Emphasizes Need to Shrink City

Detroit --Mayor Dave Bing said Wednesday he "absolutely" intends to relocate residents from desolate neighborhoods and is bracing for inevitable legal challenges when he unveils his downsizing plan.

In his strongest statements about shrinking the city since taking office, Bing told WJR-760 AM the city is using internal and external data to decide "winners and losers." The city plans to save some neighborhoods and encourage residents to move from others, he said.

"If we don't do it, you know this whole city is going to go down. I'm hopeful people will understand that," Bing said. "If we can incentivize some of those folks that are in those desolate areas, they can get a better situation."

"If they stay where they are I absolutely cannot give them all the services they require."

He said there's no timeline, price tag or estimate on the number of people who would have to be moved, but said federal funding would be needed. Bing said he plans to focus on the neighborhoods in which Detroit Public Schools plans to build schools with $500.5 million in bonds voters approved last year.

"You can't support every neighborhood," Bing told WJR's Frank Beckmann. "You can't support every community across this city. Those communities that are stable, we can't allow them to go down the tubes. That's not a good business decision from my vantage point."

Bing acknowledged it won't be "an easy conversation." And he's already facing opposition from activists such as Ron Scott, who said he is "adamantly opposed" and believes the business community is pushing Bing to get cheap access to large tracts of the city.

"Sounds like reservations to me, it sounds like telling people to move," Scott said. "The citizens of the city of Detroit who built this city, the working class, didn't create this situation. You are diminishing the constitutional options people have by contending you have a crisis."

Bing's staff is using its own data and a survey released last weekend by Data Driven Detroit. The block-by-block study of the 139 square-mile city showed that roughly one in three parcels are vacant lots or abandoned homes. The mayor's staff didn't elaborate on Bing's comments to WJR beyond a statement saying, "the mayor will utilize data from several sources including city departments, Data Driven Detroit, as well resident input, to prepare a viable land use plan."

Steven Ogden, executive director of Next Detroit Neighborhood Initiative, is using the group's data to come up with a plan for which neighborhoods his nonprofit should target in the next several years with time and money. He submitted a proposal to the Bing administration within the past several days on what areas he wants to partner with the city to target.

Ogden said he supports Bing's direction, saying it's the only way the city can survive, but acknowledges it goes against past practice of the city putting money where the need is greatest or spreading funds equally city-wide.

"It's about where to invest the least amount of money to get the greatest impact," Ogden said. "We can't afford to lose another resident."

Detroit's population has shrunk to roughly 900,000 from 1.85 million in 1950.

John Mogk, a Wayne State law school professor, said Bing's on the right track but will face four major challenges: political support; money; creating a bureaucracy to administer the project and legal challenges.

Among the court challenges he sees ahead include the legality of cutting off city services to particular neighborhoods and using eminent domain to relocate residents. In 2006, voters approved a prohibition on government's ability to take property for economic development.

"It's a huge challenge," Mogk said. "No other city in terms of Detroit's scale ... has yet to face up to what it needs to do and has accomplished it."

"Detroit is really venturing into a new frontier."