DETROIT AS A PHOENIX

                  I AM PATIENT WITH STUPIDITY BUT NOT WITH
                        THOSE WHO ARE PROUD OF IT.
                                               Edith Sitwell


     The state that Detroit Michigan is in is typical of what 50 years of Progressive ideals can wrought with an economy and population.  Once 10th in size in the US it now is down to 750,000 residents.  A huge area of the once thriving city is now like Dresden or Hiroshima.  But a bomb did not do it.  It was warfare but not of a military nature.
     I had neighbors whose folks had left the area behind 30 years ago because of the crime, gangs, and the direction that it was going.  Homes can be bought for $1.00 and there are no takers.  The retirements of workers are in jeopardy because of the drastic drain on the budget it poses.
     Detroit is now in bankruptcy.  It is no longer up to citizens or elected officials to point the direction of the city.  It is now in the hands of a judge and lawyers.  Can we expect anything good from this?  I doubt it. 
     I had heard a plan that was proposed once and have not heard anything about it since.  I thought it was so simple it would work.  That is probably the reason it is not being discussed.
      So how would a writer from Kansas have a solution for the problems up there?  I guess just plain audacity, so I will expand on what I would do with Detroit if given the chance.
     Like all metropolitan areas Detroit went through huge expansion.  Even letting entire neighborhoods crumble there is cost with keeping it in the city limits.  The original idea was to take a half section or 320 acres of the ravaged neighborhoods and clear it all off, pull all utilities and return it to farmland and de-annex it.
     My proposal is to take many of the unemployed that are still willing to work, starting to clean and pallet brick and salvage building materials and put the salvage up for sale for cash money.  Turn as much back to farmland as can be cleaned up.
     The old factory buildings that have not been ravaged, or are salvageable, start indoor growing operations again taking residents willing to work and put t
hem to feeding themselves and the whole region.
     Those who would not work or are able bodied would be cut off of government programs that reward laziness.  Those who need help would get help but again with training of local unemployed people.  Training programs for a whole myriad of jobs from nurses, EMT's, construction, farming and what ever was needed be created.
      The strangle hold of the Unions would be rolled back, not to free up companies to run roughshod over labor but there has to be some common sense brought back.  Workers can be employed if they are affordable and willing to work.  We have heard too many stories of what 'rights' have been negotiated that make no sense at all.
     There will have  to be a building back of the police, fire, and EMS.  Then the gangs will have to be driven out of town.  Judges, prosecutors, and politicians will have to have the will to look the gangs in the eye and not blink.
     If all the programs that the government are turning on law abiding citizens to the criminals there could be a massive shift of law breakers from the city.  This also includes the Federal agencies taking illegal aliens and ship them back to their countries or prisons which ever is appropriate.
      Bring in the innovators who can turn a disaster into an asset.  Profit is not a dirty word bankruptcy is.  If there was an incentive like a labor pool that is affordable and facilities for new production the jobs will start flowing back from overseas.
      BUT then what does a broken down cowboy from the hills know?