A few weeks ago we ran a piece from Steve Tobocman about what the future of immigration means to Detroit. The
AtlanticWire didn't post from it, but posted to a few other pieces resonating the same thoughts.
A few of the points from the
AtlanticWire:
- Citizenship
For Rich Immigrants The Traverse City Record-Eagle's Phil Power suggests, "Let's
create a new urban homestead program. Offer anybody with $1 million in
assets who wants to move to Detroit the possibility of citizenship.
Bring your million; get your work permit; start a business; stay five
years. Bingo! You're an American citizen, participating in one of the
most exciting urban redevelopment projects of our day." Power says the
city should attract white-collar workers so they don't displace the
fragile blue collar economy.
- Bustling Immigrant Hub
Liberal
blogger Matthew Yglesias writes,
"Economic and governance opportunities in Detroit are poor by American
standards (or even by Italian standards) but they're great compared to
what you'll find in Haiti, Gaza, Myanmar, Chad, or Nicaragua. There's
discussion of trying to turn Detroit into some kind of hub
for wealthy immigrants who are just trying to escape a bad
political situation, but there's simply a limited number of such people,
and the real opportunity is in thinking bigger and creating a kind of
Detroit Special Migration Zone that would become a diverse, bustling hub
of economic opportunity for the world's poor while providing new
taxpayers for Detroit's government, new customers for Detroit's
businesses, and a new source of value for Detroit's property owners.
It'll never happen for a million reasons, but I'd love to see it."
Read the entire post
here.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.