The New Republic: Salvaging Detroit's disasters

There is no denying that Detroit needs help, a lot of it. But the city isn't hopeless. There are a lot of assets lying around that other industrial cities don't have. Detroit just needs to capitalize on them.

Excerpt:

Institutions developed at the height of Detroit's postwar prosperity remain--and provide the city with advantages that similarly depressed industrial cities cannot claim. It has educational institutions in or near the city (the University of Michigan, Wayne State) and medical institutions (in part, a legacy of all those union health care plans) that are innovative powerhouses and that currently generate private-sector activity in biomedicine, information technology, and health care management. And there is already a smattering of examples of old industrial outposts that have reacquired relevance. An old GM plant in Wixom has been retrofitted to produce advanced batteries. There's a new automotive-design lab based in Ann Arbor. And Ford, the most promising of the Big Three, has made a decisive shift toward smaller, cleaner cars.

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