When Detroit's mayor Dave Bing met with Detroit city council last night to discuss his plan to revitalize the city, Bing stated that "[w]e will not take the position of forcing people from their homes."  Apparently, this means that Bing will avoid using eminent domain, and instead will rely on incentives alone to implement his plans. That's almost certainly a mistake.

Bing's vision to relocate residents from blighted neighborhoods plagued by vacancies and poor coverage by city services to more dense and vital neighborhoods is ambitious and well thought out.  Importantly, Bing has made other tough choices and has restored some confidence in Detroit's government-- a sharp turnaround from recent scandal-plagued administrations.  He has established a foundation for change in Detroit and he is without a doubt at the moment Detroit's best hope for a better future. 

In previous public statements, Bing has expended political capital telling Detroit's residents that there were necessary sacrifices to be made.  Previous to yesterday, he has strongly suggested that the city would use the city's eminent domain powers to ensure that the plan would not be derailed by holdouts in obsolete neighborhoods, saying that the city "would have to make hard decisions to get people to move" and acknowledging that some people would be forced to move (3:00 of embedded audio, for example).  Now, though, he seems to be backing off of that, effectively tying his hands, and making his plans beholden to individual holdouts-- specifically, the inevitable few hard-headed people that exist in every community in the world who fail to understand any greater public need that exists beyond the bounds of their own property.  It's hard to see how Bing's ambitious plan for saving Detroit is going to work without both carrots and sticks, to encourage and incentivize, but then ultimately force, residents to abandon their homes in certain neighborhoods, in the best interests of the city and of all its people.

Bing will attend public meetings and will "listen" to the community regarding his plan.  It is a political reality that any leader needs to listen to his constituency, but the fact is that Bing already had a solid plan, and that plan required that "hard choices" would be made by city leadership.  Listening too much to the citizens of Detroit at this point will just lead to paralysis, because this plan can not satisfy every individual and be effective simultaneously.

Furthermore, while Bing had acknowledged previously that his relocation plan would have "winners and losers,"  Michigan's recently reformed eminent domain laws ensure that even the so-called losers-- those forced to move-- are winners at least on paper.  Michigan residents passed a ballot initiative in 2006 which amended the state Constitution's eminent domain provisions, in response to the Supreme Court's controversial decision in Kelo vs. New London, CT.  Michigan law now requires that homeowners must be paid at least 125% of fair market value for property seized under eminent domain.  The Michigan Constitution also now specifically prohibits "taking of private property for transfer to a private entity for the purpose of economic development or enhancement of tax revenues."

After the Michigan Constitution was amended, the Michigan legislature also passed further laws favoring property owner's rights and limiting eminent domain power, and included a required reimbursement of moving expenses for households displaced by eminent domain actions of up to $5,250.  Eminent domain has a bad reputation in the city from past land seizures, such as when Detroit neighborhoods were divided by its interstate highways.  But the purpose this time does not resemble those in past actions, and citizens are guaranteed a better deal this time by law.

Importantly, the use of eminent domain for Bing's plan appears workable.  Despite the high bar set by the Michigan Legislature for eminent domain renewal, the relocation idea originally proposed by Mayor Bing was legal and constitutional, according to a local eminent domain attorney who had fought previous eminent domain actions by the city in the past:

Local eminent domain attorney Alan Ackerman says Mayor Dave Bing's ambitious plan to demolish blighted properties and relocate residents from desolate to stable neighborhoods is not only constitutional, it is necessary.

"It's not an economic issue," Ackerman told WJR AM-760 host Frank Beckmann on Thursday.  "It's an issue of public safety.  And I think that the city has a reasonable argument."

Ackerman says that any individual house could properly be legally deemed blighted under the law, regardless of its physical condition, if its location stretches city services to the point where it detracts from public safety in other parts of the city, causing blight.  "Therefore, to properly apportion police and other public safety you have to remove that house because it blights the rest of the city," Ackerman says.

Ackerman offered this opinion even before the city was swept by wildfires this week, putting Detroit's public safety issues again in the spotlight.  Wildfires swept through neighborhoods mixed with occupied and abandoned homes, and high winds carried embers from uncontrolled blazes to new locations.  In all, a total of 85 separate fires burned across the city.  Some residents of the affected neighborhoods have criticized the response to the fires as slow and inadequate:

[R]esidents complained Detroit 911 dispatchers did not answer calls and treated them rudely. "I called 911 and the phone rang and rang," Sharon Kelso, who called 911 several times to report a small fire that eventually destroyed several homes, told The Detroit News.

"Finally, the call was disconnected. Then I drove to the fire station a few blocks away; nobody was there. A Detroit traffic officer came up and saw the fire, and he was trying to get through to someone, but he wasn't getting anybody, either. So we just stood there and watched while this thing got bigger and bigger. Finally, an hour later, they sent one truck."

The situation with the police is no better, and the schools are notoriously poor.

Detroit simply does not have the tax base to support itself with basic services, as it it structured presently.  Half measures will not suffice in correcting the problem.  For instance, Bing has committed to tearing down 10,000 unsafe structures, which can be accomplished without eminent domain through land purchases on a voluntary basis, but tearing down random unsafe buildings won't solve Detroit's problems-- 26% of Detroit is already vacant lots.  Instead, sparsely populated neighborhoods need to be abandoned completely so that the city can concentrate its city services on a much smaller area.

Jesse Jackson, who is in Detroit for the month, has his own ideas of what should be done.  He expresses concerns that relocation of entire neighborhoods may amount to gentrification, and says Detroit's existing neighborhoods need investment in new construction. But if police, fire, and school service are not adequate, who is going to occupy the structures raised up by this proposed building boom?  Jackson criticized the idea that vacant land be used for urban agriculture.  "Detroit needs investment in industry, housing and construction -- not bean patches," Jackson declared dismissively.  But in the short term, the investment may not be coming.  Private industry certainly will be reluctant to invest where basic public services are so poor.  Detroit is likely going to have to fix its problems without a great deal of outside investment.  Without that investment, there is the matter of how vacant land can be used.  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade-- and using vacant land for urban agriculture might just be the best idea that doesn't require a lot of investment.

Meanwhile, both Jackson and Dave Bing had their vehicles stolen in the same week-- hopefully yet another reminder to both that Detroit's police and other city services are currently not adequate.  Without restored city services, industry investment and new construction is just wishful thinking.  Bing's plan has the potential to make a difference, but only if he moves forward aggressively.