"We would attract young people," Fieger said. "You make Detroit a fun city. A place they want to live and they would flock here."

Notice he does not address crime or the infrastructure or any of the issues a family-type person would be interested in. The exact opposite, in fact. It sounds more like Animal House, or worse.

That said, if, after it is said and done, we are allowed to put up a wall and place armed guards ala' "Escape From New York" then I say sure, go for it.

On the pot, the feds will probably come in and start busting people if it becomes much of a success so I think that is non-starter.

I don't see the prostitution working very well either. People would still have to travel to Detroit - since it is not a destination otherwise I think that pretty much leaves the locals...most of which (I take it) don't have a lot of money. It would probably would bring in some new money, but I doubt a lot. I don't see people moving there unless there is a reasonably good job for them. If this would actually work I would expect those small towns in Nevada with the brothels would be doing much better.

I think legalizing prostitution in a city within reasonable driving distance of another big city with good jobs (or destination).might work.

Detroit has issues. First and foremost its economic stagnation, most others flow from that. What they need is to draw in businesses that will provide employment, and start doing smart things with the land. Stop turning beautiful waterfront property into parking lots...by way of example.

Not one person who has ever driven away from the city on Mack Ave would say such a stupid thing. Feiger, a very rich guy, and hero of the left, apparently doesn't know much about Detroit.

Ferndale, while a nice urban hipster town, would probably not want what he's selling.

If that happens, I might move back to Detroit!!!

If they do it for Detroit, they're gonna have to do it elsewhere, and then Detroit would be right back to square one. Besides, there's a really shady element in Detroit that would manage to eff this up all over the place. I think Fieger is living in a fantasy world; there would be obvious repercussions to the criminal element that already controls the weed supply there, and they wouldn't take too kindly to being usurped, I don't think.

If we're going to decriminalize weed, we should do it nationwide, or not do it at all.

Or Detroit could be practical and go bankrupt, shed all its pension obligations, dump its union contracts, and privatize everything possible. I guess that's not as sexy though.

I'd be for both, but Feiger's deluded if he thinks that would make Detroit the New Amsterdam. Amsterdam is Amsterdam because:

1. It has a long tradition as a free city and a melting pot of Europe.
2. It's a major trading city & port.
3. It's a major financial center and has been for centuries (also known for innovation--the Bourse & Dutch East India Company, anyone?).
4. The cultural contributions of Amsterdam do not center on weed and hookers.
5. The engine that drives Amsterdam is not tourists but rather the industrious (and rather dour) Dutch.

Legalizing prostitution and weed would please my libertarian leanings, but neither pot nor blow jobs is going to change the world, or even Detroit.

What happens in Detroit, stays in Detroit? Las Vegas, with worse weather?

I thought the stimulus was supposed to save the automobile manufacturers, and thus Detroit? Didn't the government already prove they could lose money running a whorehouse? Some people have more faith than I do.

I don't see it. Doesn't Detroit have the largest Muslim population in the US? They aren't famous for being libertines.

Pardon me if I'm insufficiently negative on this one.

It's funny that he wants hookers. Young people don't need hookers. It's horny middle aged attorneys that need hookers.

I think hooking should be legal everywhere (or at least a local decision to have or not). I wouldn't want to associate with people who paid for sex as I find it pathetic, and the people drawn to that life have serious, serious problems as a general rule, but it shouldn't be illegal. I also think if I want to sell my kidney or half my liver, I should be allowed.

Stop enforcing pot laws? Why stop there? One person's high is no better than another's. So I don't see why pot should get special treatment. What if I like uppers and not downers? WHy not cater to me? Which brings up problems of it's own.

While I think that both prostitution and weed should be legal, I don't think that trying to use them as a lure for tourism-or new "workers" is a good idea. Sex tourism? Come to Detroit to for some fine booty sampling? No, thank you. Stoners aren't gonna travel across the country to get high. The ticket I'd get here in Austin if I were busted with a quarter ounce is way less than a plane ticket and a hotel room. Oh, and there are actual JOBS here, even if you're a stoner. There's no point in moving somewhere just because pot's legal if you ain't got no job to make the dough to buy it. Same with hookers.

An absurd pipe dream. This is why everybody hates midwesterners.

Here's another idea: build benevolent cyborg peace-keepers that stand for liberty, justice and human rights (and world-class symphony).

Citizens will marvel at Michigan's ingenuity again.

Huh? Both are alreadty de-facto legal in Detroit. You would have to be stupid to a degree almost impossible to measure to get arrasted for either one in Day-Twah, much-ells charged, much-less arrraigned, much-less-convicted. Besides, law-enforcement is far-too busy busting legal operations in the 'burbs (regular daytime hours, large amounts of slam-dunk evidence and zero chance of being shot at) to bother with penny-ante dealers in the cit-ay.

Fieger is a perennial gadfly in DTW politics, who presumes to know, from his safe locations in the 'burbs, what would turn DTW around. He doesn't.

llater,

llamas

Feiger is the perfect illustration of that old joke that "the only thing that guy ever ran is his mouth."

I would enjoy seeing him in charge, if only to show how laughably out of his league he is.

See that Fabulous Ruins of Detroit site on your list of links? There's no Fabulous Ruins of Amsterdam site like that.

Naked women & legal pot are like spices on a well-cooked meal. They add flavor to something that's already appetizing. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas works because Vegas is a place where people want to be. Detroit is a place people want to get away from, as evidenced by the latest census results that show the population has declined to the level it was at when Model Ts were rolling off the assembly line.

heh, or y'know you could entice people with I dunno, jobs or something?

else, where are they going to get the money to spend, eh?

Has Detroit been enforcing prostitution laws? I heard many years ago that the hookers there would walk right up to your car and offer their services.

For: only because the Government can save money by NOT arresting, prosecuting and imprisoning victimless crimes and focus on the important stuff.

Sure, his proposal sounds silly, but so many serious plans are bullshit, what's the harm in a little reality theatre?

Ok, now I have a normal keyboard. Sorry about that.

Look, everyone from Fieger on down thinks that Detroit's problems are something that happened to the city, like an act of God, and that therefore doing something else to the city will somehow magically fix it. But Detroit's problems are poured with the concrete - no outside force can fix it.

40 years of the most amazing corruption, graft and crime - in the city government. A succession of leaders and executives ranging from the merely laughably inept all the way to full-blown criminal rackets. Systematic destruction of vast swathes of the productive capacity of the city in the name of some passing political fad, to satisfy some momentarily-favoured constituency, to keep the gravy-train of graft flowing, or to pander to the basest urges of the electorate as voting day draws near.

The vote of a city council member on a multi-billion dollar city contract was bought for $6K, cash. The last mayor but one swapped his office for a succession of jail cells, and now, almost 2 years on, is still facing a whole slew of staste and Federal corruption charges that have no end in sight. The new mayour, who suffers form the major disability (in Detroit) of being honest and forthright, can't get a G-d-damned lightbulb changed in the city - the usual suspect corruptocrats are mrerly biding their time until they wear this one out (like the last honest mayor) and they can go back to business-as-usual.

But this is business-as-usual in Detroit. Ask many Detroiters, and they'll declare that that same mayor was a fine man and a great leader, whose only fault was that the Feds and the suburbanites set out to 'get him' because he was doing too good a job for the City of Detroit.

You can't fix that. When corruption and graft are SOP, and when the city's leaders are more-than-willing to screw over the residents again and again, and when the residents allow themselves to be screwed over, again and again, in the name of some vague set of political and cultural slogans - you can't fix that. You could flood Detroit with cash as from a firehose - indeed, it has been so flooded for years, by a succession of Democratic administrations - and the money will simply drain away across the cracked and broken concrete. Detroit now operates as a banana republic - and the only ways to reform one of those are not palatable to the US electorate for a domestic location.

llater,

llamas

Anyone else getting flashbacks of the old Robocop movie.

I think first we should legalize pot in one region of the country, and see how that goes.

I nominate the Pacific Northwest. That I live there is merely a coincidence.

Anyone else getting flashbacks of the old Robocop movie

Hell, I've just finished making the comparison to today's Bridgeport, CT!!

Except that the most corrupt politician in that city prefers to remain behind the scenes, and run things from his restaurant.

I'm fine with the pot aspect, but I'm not sure that prostitution works to get permanent residents, especially the kind you'd want (on the purchasing side, that is).

Nobody's really going to move there because they can legally spend lots of money on prostitutes, I suspect - if only because people with that desire and piles of money to cover it already have discrete illicit connections (or just an informal "arrangement" with someone).

It might get you considerable tourist income, I suppose.

Pot and pokies? From a libertarian standpoint I'd favor legalizing both. But I'm having trouble seeing this as an economic or reputation win. Besides, with the way things go these days, we know what would happen with those industries. Who the heck wants subsidized prostitutes?

When I taught alternative school, one of my students wanted to know where Amsterdam was and if he could drive there from South Carolina. Detroit, he knew about.

None of the girls wanted to know about Amsterdam. They knew they could get all the dope and sex they wanted locally.

I saw this post this morning, I just couldn't come up with the phrasing to express my viewpoint. (I was suffering from ICS -- Insufficient Coffee Syndrome.)

CD pretty much has my same thoughts.

I'm for legalization of pot and prostitution on a general basis. The individual has the right to enjoy the individual pleasures as long as they don't infringe on my rights and I am not harmed by those actions.

But a plan to use it as an income stream, it just doesn't pass the smell test to me.

Having grown up about an hour north of Detroit, I'd just like to point out that the only change would be that it's finally legal. Oh, and it would clean up Flint and Saginaw a LOT. :D

I'm all for legalizing drugs and prostitution, but leaving the laws in place and just ignoring them isn't the same thing. It leaves control of the trade in the hands of criminals. If they'd done that with alcohol, instead of actually repealing Prohibition, you'd still be buying bathtub gin from a guy who'd just killed another guy for selling bootleg rum on his street corner.

As for tourists being drawn by legal prostitution: if it isn't happening in Nevada, it ain't gonna happen in Detroit.

Umm, I've heard from a former resident of Detroit that hookers would open the rear doors of sedans and invite themselves along for a ride: "Hi! Howya doin'?"

That was 40 years ago.

I don't live there, so I don't really know. I do know that opening up hash bars would create jobs. That's assuming there are upwardly mobile consumers to patronize said bars. If more people here (USA) realized the benefits of marijuana, this would be viewed as a great move. I'm pro prostitution, anytime and every time no matter what we are talking about. Women should never be persecuted for choosing to sell their bodies. In the words of Peaches from the song Impeach my Bush "I'd rather fuck who I want than kill who I am told to!"

The only reason that stuff brings in money is because it's illegal.

Once Detroit officially lets people buy drugs and prostitute, you'll be buying pot and hookers for a nickel a pound.

Then they're right back where they started.