What is the competitive advantage of Detroit?

A2A In my opinion. the best thing Detroit has going for it (and especially will have once bankruptcy proceedings have been wrapped up) is a relatively clean slate to start with. Many of the traditional impediments - corruption, irreconcilable financial pressures, stuck-in-a-rut thinking, etc. - will have been reduced significantly. Rather like the aftermath of a forest fire, there will be room for creative thinking and hard work to take root and grow. Of course, I am not so naive - nor is anyone else - to believe that a successful, sustained comeback is guaranteed. But opportunities are far greater than they have been for decades.

Although "competitive advantage" is probably not the appropriate term, Detroit does have this one of a few things going for it: it has yet to use all of its resources. Speaking at the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver last week, Robert Reich suggested that Detroit was not necessarily a poor city. In fact, he said, the suburbs of Detroit include some of the wealthiest districts in the United States. If the city and its suburbs were to amalgamate, the overall state of the region's economy would not be nearly as dire as it is. According to Reich, Detroit is an extreme litmus test for current economic trends towards a more disparate American society. From his essay, http://robertreich.org/post/55976062830: Americans are segregating by income more than ever before. Forty years ago, most cities (including Detroit) had a mixture of wealthy, middle-class, and poor residents. Now, each income group tends to lives separately, in its own city — with its own tax bases and philanthropies that support, at one extreme, excellent schools, resplendent parks, rapid-response security, efficient transportation, and other first-rate services; or, at the opposite extreme, terrible schools, dilapidated parks, high crime, and third-rate services. Hamilton, Ontario had a similar, albeit less serious, inner city challenge. Ten years ago, they amalgamated their more wealthy suburbs and now have a significant tax base with which to more fairly allocate public resources within the region. Although the suburbs still complain here and there, the city has succeeded in improving a number of its downtown urban spaces thanks this change. This is by no means a "silver bullet," but it does imply that Detroit and its surrounding regions have not yet sapped all resources.