Email
PrintDetroit: Open for Business
(page 1 of 3)
The Detroit Pistons still played there when he arrived in town as a rangy 22-year-old who would soon become the NBA rookie of the year. He would go on to Hall of Fame status, but last year, he set a record few would have envisioned: He won four elections for Mayor of Detroit.
All that voting was due to an odd quirk in the city charter, and the resignation of the disgraced and convicted Kwame Kilpatrick.
The irony was that this came after Bing spent a lifetime trying to avoid politics.
At 66, however, he felt he had no choice. “I have never seen so many people in pain and hurting. If you love the city, you can’t just leave it in misery. So I decided to run, against the wishes of my family and friends.
“They said it’s time to enjoy life. I said, ‘No, this is what I need to do. This is my calling right now, and I’m going to give it everything we’ve got.’ ”
He knows that, this month, out-of-towners will flood in for the North American International Auto Show, people whose knowledge of his city is based on the image of devastation in a recent Time cover story.
Bing knows he can’t change that overnight. Yet he also knows that despair isn’t all there is to the Motor City. He has a message he wants to send to people in the city, the state, and beyond: Detroit is open for business.
“We have our problems, and we aren’t going to shy away from those problems, but there are a lot of good things going on, also. And we want to make sure people know about the good things happening in Detroit; it’s not all bad.”
Detroit’s new mayor recently shared his assessment of the real state of the city, his biggest problems, and how he plans to lay the foundation for Detroit’s turnaround.
Kwame Kilpatrick was back in town this fall after being accused of violating the terms of his probation. Do you feel you have to do a certain amount of damage control?
Absolutely. It is unfortunate, but I am a realist. You know, we went through, and are still going through, a yearlong fallout from him personally, and his administration. He let a lot of people down, and we’re paying for that. So you have to work harder than you normally would to change the perception of folks.
How do you change Detroit’s image?
It’s personal. It’s about touching people, it’s about communicating with people, it’s about being honest with people — good, bad, or indifferent. You’ve got to let people know what’s really happening. And a lot of folks obviously lost confidence in the leadership here in the city. And that’s not something that’s easy to overcome, but I think I bring a certain amount of maturity, I think I bring a certain amount of honesty, a certain amount of credibility. All those things help, but it’s going to take time.
Could you rank your top three to five goals?
No. 1 would be financial stability. No. 2 would be safety. No. 3 would be education. No. 4 would be job creation. No. 5 would be both right-sizing city government and the size of the city.
Back when he was Detroit’s auditor general, Joe Harris said he thought it was inevitable that, sooner or later, the city would fall into receivership. Was he wrong?
I can’t say that he was wrong. I’m not going to sit here and try to predict the future, but we’ve got a financial crisis that’s been going on for some time. I think the past administration, and so far this administration, have been able to push that back. We’re going to do everything we can to keep us out of bankruptcy and having an [emergency] financial manager come in. But based on what’s happening in the national economy and the Michigan economy and surely in Detroit, it’s not going to be easy.
How bad is the city’s economic situation?
I knew that I inherited somewhere between a $280- and a $300-million deficit. That’s huge, no doubt about it. The thing that I really wanted to focus on is not adding to the deficit. And if the economy wasn’t so bad, and there was a revenue stream I could count on, I think I could manage … but every day, the revenue stream is going south. And until we stabilize that, we’re not going to be able to grow the economy, and without growth, you’re looking at a disaster.
What do you do to stimulate that growth?
What I think we have to do is change attitudes. We can’t change the business climate. We have to change the way we do business in the City of Detroit, because, for years, business people who have tried to do business with the city have always said it was very difficult.
A one-stop shop in Detroit where you could apply for permits, etc., has been suggested.
We’re working on it as we speak. Permits are a big issue. And I’ve heard a lot of small-business people in particular complain vociferously about how complicated it is. Another thing that’s a problem: The city owns or leases a lot of real estate. We’ve got people all over the place. And it makes it very difficult for anyone to get anything done, without going to one centralized location. We’re going to make sure we do that, also.
Like what you've read? Subscribe to Hour Detroit »
