The following was composed on August 27, 2013. The hopeful idealist that still survives in me hopes valiantly that something further has been done, that progress is being made; that perhaps the media is too wrapped up in Sean White’s new haircut to show us the good work that’s being done.

…Yeah. I didn’t buy that, either. So I’m reposting it here, to perhaps a wider audience, to see what other people think. Because discussing this is the only way we take that attention back, which is the first step towards acting on it.

I've been spending some time thinking about this Detroit problem. Stewing over it, actually, since a lot of the current thinking is pretty circular, and no new ideas are being presented.

The "problem", of course, is that the city is more than just run-down. It’s more than just suffering from decades of ineffective or incompetent or, let’s face it, downright corrupt leadership. It's more than just rapidly emptying. No, now the D's actually taken that last big step and gone bankrupt, to the tune of up to $20 Billion, and now the entropy that was tentatively held in check is really beginning to accelerate. Streets are dark. 911 takes an hour to respond. Whole neighborhoods are vacant, shut off from the power, water and gas grids. Staffing of services is so low that you can actually get shot and die on your front lawn and remain there for 6 hours before they bring a body bag. Packs of feral dogs and other high-tier predators are running around, and apparently, not even the media is going in to document it anymore. (They’ll send reporters into hot zones in Afghanistan, but when I watch the news I don’t see commentators on this coming any closer than Chicago.)

And what can anybody do about it? The Detroiters that I’ve talked with about this have all expressed a laconic, realistic view of the situation: NO, it’s not all right. It’s downright bad, and it’s getting worse. But the bills still need to be paid, and nobody’s going to extend themselves and risk their own asses to fix it. So you just go on, and you do what you need to do to get through. That’s the local philosophy – you just suck it up and just keep running. That's what you've always done. That's what we're all, as Detroiters, expected to do. Bad things happen, and you just put your head down and shove harder. You tough it out. And you learn very quickly not to rely on anybody else, because help isn't going to come.

But I’m afraid that it’s gone past the point where that philosophy, as hardy and as tough and as down-but-not-out self-reliant as it is, can get us through, Detroit. You’re down. You’re out. Winter is on its way, and the heat’s shut off. You’re gonna need some outside help if you want to survive this.

Which brings us back to the problem. The Emergency Manager is making some very unpopular cuts, shaving off slivers of the remaining residents’ livelihoods and appraising the publicly-held art for auction. He’s trying, in a logical, dispassionate way. But the slashing he’s doing won’t be enough. Others are looking expectantly over at Lansing, waiting for answers, and Lansing is shuffling its feet and looking off to Washington, DC, hoping for some kind of sign. But Washington's not going to do anything; they're afraid that it would set some kind of precedent. I mean, if we had to bail out Detroit, we’d have to bail out everybody, and then where would we be?

This situation is the definition of “unprecedented”. We're in uncharted waters here, people. None of this has ever happened before; that's why so many people are watching it so closely. And it’s why we need to consider all lines of thought, and explore new plans of action, not just the ones that have been tried and tested and that the established Powers That Be are comfortable with.

If you can't get out of this situation yourself, Detroit, and you can't rely on Federal or State aid, who's left? People have been screaming solutions all over the internet – I looked – each one crazier than the last. A few of the suggestions:

- Urban arugula farms.

- Suspending all banking regulations to bring in corporate headquarters (because big business, as we know, will save us all).

- Opening another Slows franchise (because small businesses, one at a time, will save us all).

- Suspending all taxes (Still not sure how this one works).

- Turning Belle Isle into a mini-Hong Kong for the Midwest.

- Shipping all the immigrants who want citizenship to Detroit (because they’ll stay there. We can enforce that, right?).

- Building another sports stadium, primarily with public funds (Bread and circuses, Quaestor Ilitch? Historically a very solid plan).

- Selling Detroit outright to Canada (oh, slice me with razors and douse me with lemon juice).

When my head stopped spinning, I formulated my own thoughts on this, based on my own perspective, and slowly, a winding path through the madness began to form: a middling way that, to my knowledge, I have not seen suggested. I propose the following: Think Locally.

Anybody who's spent any time in Detroit knows that the Metro area is a donut. Financially, economically, population-wise, pick your criteria and on an overlay map of the Metro Detroit area, you'll get a ring of surrounding towns and cities, with a sucking black hole in it stretching from 8 Mile to the river. Detroit, with its network of freeways, is literally a place you drive through to get to the other side of town. And that outer ring, though suffering just as everyone has in the recent economic downturn, is still doing pretty well (far, far better than Detroit proper, anyway).

I propose that the surrounding towns and cities, either separately or together, buy up the adjoining real estate in Detroit. They can patrol it, and invest in it, and effectively – then later, legislatively – take it over as their own.

I’m not talking about a fire sale, chopping up the corpse of Detroit and wiping the city away. The city’s heart isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the adjoining suburbs paying the city a fair price for this undeveloped, undervalued land, as a practical contribution to the survival of the core city that gave rise to them. I’m talking about breaking some of that massive problem down into smaller, more manageable pieces.

If you shrink the footprint of the city by buying up its outer limits, you effectively shrink the ongoing debt the city is incurring. Those far flung areas on the city limits don't have to be Detroit's concern anymore. And with less to patrol, and less to incur operating debt upon, the city can better concentrate its resources on the real problems. And maybe then the extreme cost-cutting measures the city is taking might be enough.

The surrounding cities - I'm talking Dearborn, Livonia, Oak Park, Ferndale, East Point, and the Grosse Pointe communities - should be seeing this as a way to expand their own city footprint. Real estate is the one thing they're not making any more of, right? Well, if you purchase up the public spaces and the public utilities, you can annex a little bit of this failing place - you'll probably get it for a song, too - and then you'll have room to expand. Think about it. Pre-established buildings. Pre-installed power and sewer. And most importantly, if there are active businesses there, you get their tax revenue. Each square mile that you take over – and let’s be candid, the place is laid out in a one mile by one mile grid, it’s not that hard to envision – is one less square mile that the city of Detroit has to worry about staffing. About keeping up. About keeping lit. Perhaps you’ll have to hire some additional police to patrol it. Perhaps you’ll have to hire some more city workers to keep it lit, and clean, and running. But you’ll also be able to add value and actually do something to address those adjacent areas that were once part of a perennial problem for you. You’ll get to create a buffer between your established citizens and the core of the city. You’ll be able to contribute to the gentrification process of construction jobs, new businesses and new industry as they come in to that new space.

Nibble around the edges, people! I'm only talking a few square miles. For example, Ferndale can annex a little space down the length of 75, say from 8 mile down to Palmer Park. Dearborn can take up responsibility of that block bounded by Tireman Ave., Greenfield and Southfield Road. (Never understood why that wasn't theirs, anyway.) Livonia or Farmington can take that little bit that juts out past Telegraph Road - or more, if they're able. And Southfield, here's your chance to expand down your own named freeway. Hell, Hamtramck and Highland Park can get in on this, too.

If it sounds more palatable, you can call it a “Pan-Metro Infrastructural Buy-Back Initiative” – in effect, a short to mid-term lease on a specified block of land issued by the City of Detroit, authorizing the other communities to expand their jurisdictions temporarily and make repairs, patrol and respond, etc. as if it were part of their own city budget. And just as if it were within their own city limits, those cities and town can then apply for appropriations, grants, et cetera to fund this reclamation, which would be far more likely to gain approval at a state and federal level than tackling the whole mammoth thing all at once, which as I’ve already observed, they’re not about do to for fear of setting a precedent.

It's a win-win, really. For valuation, you can use the assessed property value, or the amount in escrow, or if leasing it, the amount the city would’ve gotten in taxes if fully operating for the period of lease. (Somewhere in the city, there has to be somebody who can work the details of this out.) The city of Detroit gets a quick infusion of money from the “purchase” that it can apply towards its debt. It gets an opportunity to concentrate its efforts into a smaller area for better effect. The surrounding communities get to expand their own borders, allowing for new development, creating a buffer against the inner city, and boost their own economies hiring additional people to take care of the new areas.

"You’re talking about redistricting!" I'm hearing a few voices mutter. Let the feds and the county seats worry about that once the power’s back on. Redistricting is just lines on a map – anyone who knows what "gerrymandering" is can tell you that. View this instead as a land deal that will never, ever come around again. If the Grosse Pointe area is doing well enough to afford it, why shouldn't it be allowed to expand? Take the space over, patrol it, power it, invest in it, and then take it in the next census as part of eminent domain. And then you have a new voting block, comprised primarily of very grateful people who still have homes and communities which they’re fully committed to.

What about the long-term ramifications for the city? Good question. Maybe these cities can work out a deal with Detroit where there's a set value on this area, impartially determined, and once the city emerges from bankruptcy and they're solvent again (he said optimistically - because one thing I know for sure is that this city is too tough to die on us), Detroit can purchase that property back. And if they can't, it'll be redistricted, and the new city gets to keep it and redraw its maps. All this can be discussed and considered and worked out by people far more bureaucratically-minded than I am. But I do know that when a plant gets overgrown, and too big to sustain itself, you pare it back. Pruning it actually does the plant a favor – it’s able to redirect its energies into more fruitful avenues, creating a thicker, stronger plant. That's really all I'm suggesting here.

Is this an ideal solution? No. But frankly, I think that letting the city rot while we wait on other people to make decisions is a far worse solution than anyone can tolerate. Help is not on the way. The Authorities (whoever they are) are paralyzed, and are not going to ride in and fix this. And the surrounding cities can't just stand around and wait to see what happens. Bad things transpire while others stand around, waiting to see what happens. We need to act. And you might even get something out of it, too, Metro Detroiters.

Maybe we get to rekindle some long-smothered civic pride. Maybe we get an opportunity to stare defiantly back at Washington and thumb our collective noses at it for not helping. Maybe we all get to share something more than love for our local sports teams – we get to step up and be counted in the clutch, when our own region’s continued survival was at stake. We get to show the rest of the world what we can do. Maybe we all get to be Detroiters, who do it our own damn selves when things get hard and no one else steps up to help. Because bad things happen, and when they do you just put your head down and shove harder.