Motor City Madness.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Urban Solutions: As host of Super Bowl XL, the city of Detroit is riding a wave of attention. Much of it, sadly, focuses on ugly urban decline. The problems, however, are not without answers.

Once mighty Motown has been stuck in reverse for roughly a half-century. During Super Bowl week, its problems have been exposed in the glare of media worldwide. Typical of the reports is this lead paragraph in Thursday's San Diego Union-Tribune:

"The economy stinks. The auto industry is hemorrhaging workers. The housing market is in broad retreat. Crime and poverty are ever-present. And it's overcast and freezing."

To be fair, the article does cite recent improvements. But Detroit's reputation as a blighted, worn-out town of riots and rot, where no one wants to live or work, will be hard to shake until city leaders get serious about improving their home.

That means more private enterprise and less government. An op-ed column by Michael LaFaive in The Detroit News last fall is as good a starting point as any: "Accelerate reductions in the city income tax. Add no new or increased taxes to the already sky-high tax burden."

Among large cities in 2003, Detroit had the eighth highest tax burden for families of four making $50,000 a year. That's the sort of financial drain that has prompted hundreds of thousands of city residents to vote with their feet and leave (see charts above). Today, the population is at its lowest point since the 1920s.

LaFaive, who is the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's director of fiscal policy, also suggested that Detroit: