Is Detroit fixable? How would you fix it?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I have to agree with Al here. The only real way to "fix" Detroit is to raze the central business district along with the most severely dilapidated neighborhoods around it and start from scratch. The core of the city has no appeal to outside residents, even without the crime and poor education system, beyond the low price of housing/cost of living.

I think it would be more beneficial to the non-wasteland neighborhoods to have designated drug districts in the post-Armageddon neighborhoods of Detroit where the sale/use of drugs is explicitly permitted as opposed to just permitting it across the city. Paramedics would be on stand-by there and clean needles would be available to make sure that complications are minimized. Yes, I stole this idea from the Wire. You have to admit it's pretty novel.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I have to agree with Al here. The only real way to "fix" Detroit is to raze the central business district along with the most severely dilapidated neighborhoods around it and start from scratch. The core of the city has no appeal to outside residents, even without the crime and poor education system, beyond the low price of housing/cost of living.

I think it would be more beneficial to the non-wasteland neighborhoods to have designated drug districts in the post-Armageddon neighborhoods of Detroit where the sale/use of drugs is explicitly permitted as opposed to just permitting it across the city. Paramedics would be on stand-by there and clean needles would be available to make sure that complications are minimized. Yes, I stole this idea from the Wire. You have to admit it's pretty novel.

Open buildings rather than Areas where drug use is allowed, and have medical staff in them. Something like Insite in Vancouver but with drugs being sold there. Also add security there so that nobody leaves the area with hard drugs. I am not sure what's up with the hate on CBD though, they are ugly to a certain degree in every city. Why raze it if people want to use it? Better off trying to rebuild Detroit from CBD with medium density buildings stretching outward. Something like Copenhagens 5 fingers plan with wilderness or parks in between the fingers.

That would kind of defeat the purpose of using the change in policy to save money, no? I agree that systems like Insite is a great idea and that we should take it to the next level here. Case studies in Europe have shown that it works splendidly because use is reduced dramatically through them (it's no fun to do drugs in a medical facility, apparently) and fatalities are non-existent.

So that Detroit can have a change in image that's conducive to attracting new residents of course! Detroit's CBD in particular looks/feels like an industrial wasteland and because of that, there's no impetus for neighborhoods around the core to develop as attractive residences.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The problem with legalizing drugs (even if it were otherwise possible to do in one city) is that by legalizing them you send the message to at-risk youth that drug use is acceptable. Part of trying to fix an area is getting young people to make good life decisions and encouraging drug use is something that is not going to increase their chances of succeeding in college and integrating into larger society. Sure you could save a couple bucks by targeting police enforcement elsewhere, but does anyone really think the violent drug dealers and kingpins in a highly impoverished area like Detroit will become model citizens once you legalize drugs and build a junkie centers? The drugs are a means not an end for many. Most of the people on here are probably suburban white kids who support drug legalization because they have enough financial support that if they screw up their life, they’ll end up getting bailed out by family or end up in a rehab center. If I mess things up, I think my parents would intervene before I end up living under a bridge somewhere. The urban poor don’t have the resources to make poor decisions and escape poverty. By legalizing drugs, you might think you’re helping them, but you’re not; you’re indenturing them.

It's not really about help for me, although I think you'd be interested in seeing the statistics for things like heroin abuse in Switzerland (heroin use in general went way down with supervised injection rooms and the general perception among researchers was that it was less attractive to the population now), Portugal, Spain and other areas that have decriminalized/medicalized it - or the massive decline in HIV in New Haven (70%!) where needle exchange programs have been in place for many years now.I personally am uncomfortable with the idea of things like public welfare as it is on practical and ethical grounds never mind "harm reduction" policies, but if there's research backing it up I'm not going to personally discount it.

Now with that said, that's not totally what this is about. Mostly, it's just about resources. Detroit very obviously doesn't have the money to aggressively enforce federal law for things like Marijuana when they're already looking into 10% wage cuts and closing down things left and right. The money is barely there to deal with the violent drug dealers you mentioned, let alone some college kid toking up or looking to make some extra off-the table money to fund his habit. Also, just because something is legal (or passively tolerated by law enforcement) doesn't mean there won't be a stigma. Hell, I can tell you from experience that this country places enormous stigmas on the disabled or those with certain medical conditions and those are certainly not personal decisions, unlike drug use.

Pretty much what I was going to post verbatim, legalizing hard drugs in a deliberate manner where the state is willing to provide them and monitor their use actually works.