As the Detroit metropolitan region sprawled throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, the city’s physical boundaries remained unchanged. As a result, the city of Detroit is isolated from much of the wealth of the region and must either fund basic services through debt or choose to go without. In order to stabilize the city’s finances and alleviate the many crises that Detroit’s impoverished residents face, the broader metropolitan region should embrace a regional tax with revenues funneled to the central city. Unfortunately, Michigan’s response to Detroit’s financial crisis has been to undemocratically enforce austerity without addressing the city’s long-term revenue needs.
