Reinventing a city: Detroit's comeback thanks to serious management and... immigration!
After losing 800,000 jobs between 2010 and 2014 Detroit's population fell from 2 million to 700,000. Since 2010, however, after filing for and coming out banktrupcy with a new mayor Mike Duggan, Detroit gained 50,000 new residents from the Middle East, that started revitalizing the economy.
Rick Snyder, the Republican governor of the state of Michigan created an Office for New Americans aimed to attract skilled and entrepreneurial immigrants with college degrees. Between 2011 and 2015, 33 % of all new startups in the state were founded by -mostly Middle Eastern- immigrants, and many of them located in downtown Detroit.
It helped attract them that the new mayor move faster in cleaning abandoned lots and demolishing empty houses, re-sizing Detroit to their new population and creating more opportunities for redevelopment in the right scale.
In spite of the new administration anti-immigration rhethoric -and like in many "border zones" like Arizona-Sonora- Governor Snyder and mayor Duggan created a welcoming environment for newcomers from foreign countries, thinking out of the partisan box.
Shinola, a small startup grew from 10 to 600 employees manufacturing locally and selling globally a variety of "made in Detroit" products -from its signature luxury watches to leather goods and bikes-.
Shinola set up shop in old abandoned General Motors buildings -reclaiming for the city the pride that once associated to Motown-.
Instead of expensive plans for subsidizing old industries, Detroit has invested in entrepreneurs, not factories, knowing that only the former bring back the later, not the other way around.
Tax abatements and grant programs for new industries helped start new businesses -60 new companies, 40 of them owned by black citizens- and changed the image of Detroit from erminder of what went wrong to re-branded symbol of entrepreneurial spirit among black and muslim communities, debunking myths and bias against both groups with visible, usable fact such as coveted bikes and watches.
Another example of the holistic "city doctors" approach in action.
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