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Detroit Wants Its Own High-Tech Visa
dcblogs writes "Detroit, a city in bankruptcy and dealing with a shrinking population, hopes to turn itself around with the help of 50,000 employment-based green cards. In exchange for the visa, an immigrant would be required to 'live and work' in Detroit for an undetermined length of time. The visas would be made available under the EB-2 visa category, a visa for advanced degree professionals or those deemed with 'exceptional ability' in the sciences, arts and business. The proposal was made by Michigan's governor, Rick Snyder. Daniel Costa, an immigration policy analyst at Economic Policy Institute, said Snyder would have more credibility on the issue if he were doing more to help workers in Detroit. In 2011, the state cut jobless benefits by six weeks to 20. 'I also think the federal government should be offering people in the U.S. some money and land in Detroit if they'll move there,' said Costa, or 'just offer it to people across the country who have advanced degrees.'"
The city has been terribly managed for decades. I'm not sure what ground Costa has on criticizing Governor Snyder here though.. the city was given years to clean up its act and didn't really do anything of note, so he only recently stepped in to get the city managed by competent people using Michigan's "emergency manager" laws. They city needs a rapid rise in tax base or a bailout.. since Americans aren't exactly flocking to Detroit (even though property is cheap and employment is available if you have skill) and bail out money isn't to be had, pleading for immigrant help isn't exactly off base. It's not even Snyder's original idea, this has been floated for awhile now.
Portland suffered through this fate many years ago. There is one thing that will put Detroit back on the map, something California and Texas do not have...
Fresh water. Chip plants need it, businesses require this to run. When the major aquifers dry up and make sunbelt areas extremely expensive to live in (barring an advance in desalination, and even then, trying to pump that water inland), Detroit, and Michigan in general, will be relevant again. No water worries, fairly stable terrain (no earthquakes), worst issue might be blizzards.
I'd give Detroit a couple years for it to reach its nadir, because the one-two punch of a continual drought combined with the extreme populations trying to live in desert will eventually cause an exodus back to the northern climates, as that will be where the companies relocate and where the jobs will be.
You obviously don't know your own car makers do you? I grew up in North America, but live in Europe. Want to know a dirty little secret? I can get reliable low gas requirement AMERICAN cars in Europe. Around 1999 we bought a Jeep Wrangler and then took it to Canada. Since it was NORTH AMERICAN built we could import the car without problems. What was interesting was that the Jeep dealership who had to do some minor changes spent nearly 1.5 hours inspecting the car. We thought something was wrong and asked how come they took so long. Answer, "your Wrangler is Awesome it has so many efficiency features and electronics that I have never seen on sale here."
I recently had a discussion about this with an American and the problem is not the American car makers, but Americans. They want from their American car makers BIG FAT engines with BIG FAT chassis. Americans are not willing to go for the reliable low gas requirements cars because they are "wimpy" cars. The cars I drive here are American built and they are not wimpy. They might not have 600 HP, but who the frig cares since it is not that useful anyways. And even less useful in America...
Go figure, eh!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"