Scott Martelle
Author Scott Martelle, a former reporter for the Detroit News and Los Angeles Times, insists Gov. Rick Snyder's decision to appoint an emergency financial manager is all wrong.
In an Op-Ed piece published today in the LA Times, Martelle writes about the EM:
That's a flawed approach. The problem in Detroit is not the people in charge (though some Detroit leaders have certainly failed the city). The real problem is the broader structure of government in the region.
And therein lies a lesson for other urban areas and, perhaps, a template for avoiding what befell the Motor City. Detroit, once the nation's fourth-largest city, has been crumbling since the 1950s, when its population peaked at a little over 1.84 million people.
Martelle, Southern California-based author of the 2012 book "Detroit: A Biography," goes on to write:
Slashing spending and privatizing assets won't fix Detroit, or any of the nation's other troubled cities. This crisis calls for reinvention.
And as much as Detroiters may balk, they, in turn, need the support of the suburbs if they are to climb out of this hole.
Detroit is not dead. In fact, as a nation, we should look at it as a big canvas on which to reimagine what a city can be.
Martelle also writes that Detroit should regionalize services such as police, fire and schools.
In addition to regionalizing rather than privatizing some services, Detroit could start by offering the land it holds for back taxes to working homesteaders — not speculators — who will commit to five or seven years of occupancy. The same strategy could be applied to the abandoned commercial and industrial sites lining Detroit's main thoroughfares, converting liabilities into taxpaying properties and, in the process, creating urban villages.
