Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Make Detroit work: Start embracing long-time residents, business owners
I wrote this for the Detroit News website. It could, however, apply to a lot of cities.
OK, Detroit, time for a big group hug. Getting 700,000-plus people together for a literal communal embrace might be impractical and incredibly awkward. But, metaphorically at least, we could use one.
If you live outside the Detroit, don’t believe the ugly stereotypes about “apathetic” citizens hunkered down in a crime-ridden, dying city. I don’t want to sugar-coat the problems. They are real and they are huge. But the vast majority of Detroiters are law-abiding, hard-working people who care about the community. That means the raw material for a turn-around exists and has for a long time.
As newly-elected Mayor Mike Duggan starts his term, a lot of things that need doing will be obvious. We need better police and fire response times and a lower crime rate. We need the street lights fixed. We need a city budget built on reality and not wishful thinking. We need to find ways to bring down insurance rates. We need a more responsive, results-oriented city bureaucracy. Everybody knows that.
However, to make Detroit a truly great place, we need to attract and embrace newcomers without making long-time, stayed-through-thick-and-thin residents feel pushed aside. Same is true for the city’s beleaguered small-business community, which has persevered without the tax credits and incentives that have been used to attract new employers to Detroit.
MORE HERE: http://blogs.detroitnews.com/politics/2013/11/08/detroit-works-starts-embracing-long-time-residents-business-owners/
If you live outside the Detroit, don’t believe the ugly stereotypes about “apathetic” citizens hunkered down in a crime-ridden, dying city. I don’t want to sugar-coat the problems. They are real and they are huge. But the vast majority of Detroiters are law-abiding, hard-working people who care about the community. That means the raw material for a turn-around exists and has for a long time.
As newly-elected Mayor Mike Duggan starts his term, a lot of things that need doing will be obvious. We need better police and fire response times and a lower crime rate. We need the street lights fixed. We need a city budget built on reality and not wishful thinking. We need to find ways to bring down insurance rates. We need a more responsive, results-oriented city bureaucracy. Everybody knows that.
However, to make Detroit a truly great place, we need to attract and embrace newcomers without making long-time, stayed-through-thick-and-thin residents feel pushed aside. Same is true for the city’s beleaguered small-business community, which has persevered without the tax credits and incentives that have been used to attract new employers to Detroit.
MORE HERE: http://blogs.detroitnews.com/politics/2013/11/08/detroit-works-starts-embracing-long-time-residents-business-owners/