Rethinking Detroit's Decline [Reihan Salam]
Aaron Renn, an innovative urban thinker, has written a provocative essay for The New Geography on how the weakness of Detroit's municipal government could prove a source of renewal.
In many cities where strong city government still functions effectively, citizens are tied down by an array of regulations and permits that are actually enforced in most cases. Much of the South Side of Chicago has Detroit like characteristics, but the techniques of renewal in Detroit won’t work because they are likely against code and would be shut down the minute someone complained. Just as one quick example, my corner ice cream stand dared to put out a few chairs for patrons to sit on while enjoying a frozen treat on a hot day. The city cited them for not having a license. So they took them away and put up a “bring your own chair” sign. The city then cited them for that too. You can’t do anything in Chicago without a Byzantine array of licenses, permits, and inspections.
The obvious upside to the strength of Chicago's city government is that it is relatively good at delivering services, far better than Detroit. Yet there's a trade-off, as Renn explains:
In most cities, municipal government can’t stop drug dealing and violence, but it can keep people with creative ideas out. Not in Detroit. In Detroit, if you want to do something, you just go do it. Maybe someone will eventually get around to shutting you down, or maybe not. It’s a sort of anarchy in a good way as well as a bad one. Perhaps that overstates the case. You can’t do anything, but it is certainly easier to make things happen there than in most places because the hand of government weighs less heavily.
Rather than rely solely on the municipal government, at least some Detroit residents are choosing innovative self-help strategies, the paradigmatic example being urban agriculture.
In related news, Witold Ribczynski, another favorite of mine, has written a wonderful short piece defending the Jacobsian, piecemeal, incremental, decentralized approach to revitalizing cities over a heavy emphasis on central planning.
agenda.nationalreview.com |
