A portrait of Detroit

I don't normally link to The Weekly Standard, it being way off the cliff in terms of its right-wing politics. But this portrait of ruined Detroit is extremely moving:

Wilcox drives me all over the city, pointing out missed urban-planning opportunities and eyesores. He takes me downtown to what the locals call "Skyscraper Graveyard," where the clock seems to have stopped in the Art Deco period and high-rise after high-rise sits empty. He points out the landmark Book Tower, a 38-story building finished in 1926, which he says is now vacant except for Bookies Tavern on the first floor. Wilcox's lawyer told him he'd been "the last tenant there. He had to downsize. People are too broke to sue people. He's now switching to bankruptcy law to try to save his house."

I come to think of Wilcox as the curator of a museum that's been overturned and looted. The prize of his collection, or what could have been his collection, is the detailed production notes he found written in Marvin Gaye's own hand for the legendary What's Going On album. He found them, along with other treasures from artist itineraries to expense accounts, in the Motown Center, which housed the label, then sat empty for 30 years, until it was knocked down in 2006 to make way for Super Bowl parking. Wilcox witnessed the demolition, which was typical of Detroit's callous disregard for its own history: "Motown letterhead was blowing down the road."

I don't think it's a good idea to have a society where free-market capitalism is the dominant ideology, and then pursue policies that put the market value of human beings so low. It's either got to be more socialism, or the market has to be set up in such a way that human beings are actually valuable.

Question: what policy changes could the federal government make that would raise the market value of the American human being? Raise the minimum wage? Make the tax code more progressive? Better funding of education? Health care not tied to employment? Domestic investment to stimulate the economy and encourage future growth? These are all liberal solutions. Are there conservative solutions to the problems of Detroit, and the problem of poverty more generally? (Lower taxes? More strict law enforcement? Tighter immigration control? Less strict environmental regulation? These aren't the solutions I naturally reach for or think are right, but if some of these things could work...)

To this liberal, it looks like the scales of society need to be tipped much more in favor of the typical human being. To do this would probably require progressive government intervention, but maybe there are other ways of doing it. Probably any solution that had a real impact on the market value of an average American would appear "radical" in the current political context. And more and more I'm coming to believe that the current political context is a huge part of the problem.

We'll see what Obama does. But he seems content to operate within the "comfort zone" of political thinking, and that may cripple him. If he's going to do what he's promised (get out of Iraq, reform health care, stimulate the economy, etc.), he's going to have to defeat some powerful groups of people who have a lot of ability to control what is considered "serious", "sensible", "prudent", etc. I hope he has the cunning to do so, and that he won't be afraid to fight when fighting is what's necessary.