{"id":12507,"date":"2013-03-07T20:26:23","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T00:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=12507"},"modified":"2013-03-07T22:34:12","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T02:34:12","slug":"the-one-percent-solution-to-detroit-blight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2013\/03\/the-one-percent-solution-to-detroit-blight","title":{"rendered":"The One Percent solution to Detroit blight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

The theme of the 2012\u00a0Democratic campaign was that the One Percenters are the problem and government the solution. The reality on the ground is the opposite \u2013 were it not for the innovation of Detroit\u2019s successful entrepreneurs where government has failed, Detroit would be even more of a basket case.<\/p>\n

From Gilbert to Ilitch to Karmanos, Detroit\u2019s wealthy have been willing downtown back to life. Now comes another billionaire, homebuilder Bill Pulte and his grandson, with a bold, innovative approach to finally tackle the city\u2019s blight crisis \u2013 a crisis that effects crime, emergency resources, and property values.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment has been wasting money doing blight demolition in a non-concentrated manner,\u201d Bill Pulte Jr. tells me. \u201cWe\u2019re bringing free market principles to the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Big Government has been an utter failure in blight intervention \u2013 throwing up permitting, paperwork, and cost barriers to getting the job done. Meanwhile, a pilot project by the Pultes cleared a neighborhood at\u00a0 HALF the cost per house of government efforts. Pulte Homes became America\u2019s biggest homebuilder by innovating scaled-production, subdivision housing. Their blight solution? Reverse engineer the process by clearing whole neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Jillian Kay Melchior, a former Detroit News intern now reporting for National Review,\u00a0has the details<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Unlike previous municipal-led efforts, the Blight Authority is hiring contractors based solely on which bid offers the highest quality and lowest cost, taking union and open-shop bids alike. Whereas previous demolition efforts attacked one building at a time, hopping around the city, the Blight Authority seeks to target whole regions. The goal, Lieutenant Colonel Henderson says, is to maintain around 2,000 structures in the queue at any given time. This concentrated, large-scale approach helps the group save on transportation and complete the project more efficiently. And when they leave, the neighborhood is clean.<\/i><\/p>\n

The Blight Authority is also taking a whack at the red tape that\u2019s held up previous efforts. It has negotiated with the city and DTE Energy to waive some of the fees and permitting expenses. . . . Finally, where previous efforts took the waste material from a demolition to the landfill 40 to 80 miles away \u2014 another expense \u2014 the Blight Authority recycles around 80 percent of the rubble.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if government and government administrations are designed to solve problems,\u201d Henderson says. \u201cI think they\u2019re designed to administer regulations and keep the status quo. . . . But an undertaking of this magnitude will always overwhelm a city. That\u2019s why we have [a philanthropic sector] that will come in and assist.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

The White House wants to confiscate more of Detroit\u2019s entrepreneur dollars to feed Washington\u2019s bureaucratic black hole. Detroit is evidence that businessmen\u2019s money is most efficient at home where it can be concentrated on solving problems like Detroit blight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The theme of the 2012\u00a0Democratic campaign was that the One Percenters are the problem and government the solution. The reality on the ground is the opposite \u2013 were it not for the innovation of Detroit\u2019s successful entrepreneurs where government has failed, Detroit would be even more of a basket case. From Gilbert to Ilitch to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12508,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507\/revisions\/12508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}