Postcards from Detroit
(by Adam Elkus)
Another example is the Detroit Threat Management Center (TMC), a private security firm that provides a range of affordable public safety services, including car-to-front door escorts, security details, and neighborhood patrols. “I attribute the bankruptcy and all the economic issues to a lack of safety,” says TMC president Dale Brown. “If you don’t feel safe, why would you invest here?”
From a very interesting Reason story on Detroit. Also: an autonomous island:
[T]hey pale in comparison to the scale and ambition of a project conceived by real estate developer Rod Lockwood. He has outlined plans to buy Belle Isle, a 982-acre public island park in the Detroit River, and transform it into an independent commonwealth with its own laws, regulations, and taxes (or lack thereof). Investors would buy the island from the city for $1 billion and then sell lifetime citizenship for $300,000. The extra $1 billion would help the city pay off its debts, and the lax regulations and low taxes would act as a magnet for investment, says Lockwood.
Not much to add, beyond a vague sense that we are seeing a stirring of more to come in other parts of the US.
December 28th, 2013 at 2:35 am
“I attribute the bankruptcy and all the economic issues to a lack of safety,” says TMC president Dale Brown.”
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I know this is probably rude of me and not political correct, but I have to wonder how “brown” Dale Brown really is, and who is he trying to protect those who ran the City into bankruptcy from, their customers?
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On the other hand, it is probably the optimist in me that sees Detroit as the cure, and not the disease.
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“the lax regulations and low taxes would act as a magnet for investment, says Lockwood.”
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But then it also seems to me, from reading these articles, that it was lax regulations and low taxes that made those who caused the bankruptcy to need all that security.
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In the end, it was just a matter of defining the regulations and against who, and requiring the taxes to be paid by who and defining by how much.
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Security had little to do with it.
December 29th, 2013 at 5:12 am
Becoming a commonwealth would require a yes vote by Congress as well as permission from Michigan to split.
This sounds similar to a deep pockets Silicon Valley VC who wants to split California into six states. He has enough money to get it on the ballot. Other VCs want a giant ship offshore, free from the government. I’m not sure how they plan to deal with pirates.
Some northern California counties also want to leave California, rightfully saying that Sacramento ignores them.
Yes, we will be seeing much more of this.
http://www.sixcalifornias.info/