Fortune's Editors have some ideas for Detroit's future, including this:
One overlooked factor that could favorably influence Detroit's future is its geography. There are few natural boundaries to separate the dying city from the generally more prosperous suburbs north of Eight Mile Road or east to Grosse Pointe, and the highway system makes long-distance commuting simple. The lack of barriers has facilitated the outflow of people beyond the city limits who take their incomes and assets with them.Detroit needs to connect with those people and that wealth to survive. The solution would be to merge the city with the surrounding counties of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb, an area already known as Metro Detroit, into a consolidated city-county government. Doing so would spread the costs of police, fire, schools, and other municipal services, allowing those brave urban pioneers who want to relocate in the city to do so with less sacrifice. If the entire region was treated as one economic entity, then Detroit could make better use of its competitive advantages – access to the Great Lakes and Canada, a strong presence in medical and information technology – without having to struggle with the efficient delivery of services that has proved so elusive.
