I've heard some settlements at Angkor Wat used to be the big deal...

PJ O'Rourke knows how to fix Detroit.

After all the abandoned properties are demolished, it's going to a unique bit of urban geography. You'll have the core of downtown Detroit, and the outer ring of suburbs, with a belt of mostly undeveloped property in between. I suppose that eventually that property will revert to a natural state, which will tend to further isolate downtown from the suburbs. I'm not sure what happens after that.

(There's a comparison to the greenbelt that surrounds London. But in that case, the existence of the greenbelt is intentional, and it constrains a city that is growing and becoming more crowded. That's not the situation with Detroit.)

> You'll have the core of downtown Detroit, and the outer ring of suburbs, with a belt of mostly undeveloped property in between

As a time traveller from the future, I can tell you that land was actually snapped up by commercial developers for its low cost during the great economic boom/bust cycle of the 2040's for offices and factories (it became a major hub for manufacturing of robots until the robots became sentient and the great robot wars began).

From the Rourke article:
> "Anyway, Detroit is broke"

This isn't really true. Consider these facts:

"The economy of metropolitan Detroit ... ten county area has a population of over 5.3 million, a workforce of 2.6 million, and about 247,000 businesses. Detroit's six county Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population of about 4.3 million, a workforce of about 2.1 million, and a Gross Metropolitan Product of $200.9 billion"

With an annual GDP of $200 billion, it's debt of $18 billion is really little more than a technical bankruptcy, not an 'actual' solvency problem ... the finances have been managed badly, but if the bad management problems were fixed, then the ability to service those debts should actually be strong.

Rourke has the right idea, but I fear that we don't have the right culture and mindset to create any new Hong Kong.

> Even now, Hong Kong has no sales tax; no VAT; no taxes on capital gains, interest income or earnings outside Hong Kong; no import or export duties

Sure, but you have no control over federal taxes.