The full sentence would be, ‘Detroit, Detroit, what a
wonderful town it could be. The
photographs we see on television and the internet are heartbreaking, the
discussions we hear about not honoring the contracts for public workers’
pensions and health care is terrifying, the precedent of an American city being
allowed to become bankrupt and essentially destroyed sound like something out
of a weird, futuristic sci-fi novel. But
all these things are reality. And they
don’t have to be, and shouldn’t be.
Just my own simple brain can see all sorts of possibilities
and there are many folks with much better brains and much better educations and
experiences, so why aren’t there more discussions about possibilities?
What if, for instance, a group of philanthropists came in
and bought up a lot of the residential areas, at bargain-basement prices of
course, and developed median priced housing in those wonderful types of village
communities with homes and apartments and restaurants and businesses, and touted
the areas as ideal for the types of folks who can earn their livings away from
offices and in an area that is pivotal for commute to either coast for
conferences and where lakes abound. That
way the unfortunate folks who own those terribly distressed properties would
get at least some compensation for them, and maybe even be able to participate
in building new communities and in the businesses and restaurants that would
support such communities.
And as far as the art museum there, full of masterpieces
owned by the city, why don’t museums all over the country form a group and buy
those same masterpieces and leave them on loan there in Detroit, because a
community needs arts as well as everything else.
And why doesn’t Congress find funds to stabilize those
pension plans just as was done for the Wall Street banks and the auto
industry?
Why?
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