Aleetzia Burns

Honors 1000
Dr. Martin
December 3, 2014
What Should We Do About Unemployment in Detroit

One of the problems that Detroit has been experiencing is a high unemployment rate.
According to Detroit, Michigan: Crippled and Paralyzed by the Recession ,an article written
by Palash Ghosh of International Business Times, While the nations unemployment rate
has remained around the 9.0 percent level for months the jobless rate in the six-county
Detroit metropolitan area was at 11.6 percent as of May 2011. For the city itself, the
unemployment rate was 20 percent(Ghosh 2011) Now nearing the end of the 2014 year,
the unemployment rate has dropped several percent since then, but it is still not enough to
make any changes to the long term effects that unemployment has had on the city of Detroit.
Over the last six years Detroit has experienced Bankruptcy, the Big three bailout, low public
school test scores, a high crime rate and a host of other issues all of which, directly or
indirectly stem from Detroits high unemployment rate.
I came to this conclusion because with so many people out of work and government aid
becoming increasingly harder to obtain, people are worrying about how they are going to
support their families on little to no income, let alone how they are going to pay taxes.
According to moneymatterstome.com, taxes are responsible for a residential areas
transport, education, health, law and order, housing, culture, media and sport, trade and
industry, environment, food and affairs. (NIACE 2009) With Detroits high unemployment
rate it makes since that the tax base in most Detroit neighborhoods are low. Areas with low
tax base cannot afford the best education and resources for their schools, police, health, and

anything else that would be funded through the areas budget, which is based off of the areas
tax bracket. From there people are more likely to result to crime and other methods to meet
their needs, in addition to that, students coming from low income families into poor school
districts with dated text books and unqualified-underpaid teachers dont have many options
available after high school graduation, and if they do, the next question would be, how do
they pay for college? Without a college degree it is almost impossible to find a job that pays
over minimum wage, which often times does not cover all an average persons everyday
expenses. And for those in college or who are getting ready to graduate, what kind of job can
they expect to get when the unemployment rate is so high?
In this essay I will be presenting solutions that answer the question of what we
(Detroiters) should do to solve the problem of a high unemployment rate in Detroit. For starters,
the unemployment problem in Detroit cannot be fixed overnight, but through thorough planning
and open communication between the people and the citys officials, the problem of
unemployment in Detroit is too big of an issue for a quick fix, and impossible to solve in a short
essay. This is why, I chose one specific incident and location in the city of Detroit where people
have set out to answer the question of what we should do to promote economic growth and
increase the amount of employed residents of Detroit. One of the most telling examples of the
hardships that have befallen Detroit is the old and abandoned ruins of the Packard Automotive
Plant, located on East Grand Boulevard near the interstate 94 on Detroits Eastside. Before
January of 2014, the Packard plant served as a home for squatters and a burial ground for what
was once known as the most advanced auto factory in the world (Christopher 2014) During
the last two years the factory has made headlines in several blogs and articles. This was due to
problems with payment in regards to bids made during the auction in which the Packard plant

was to be sold to the highest bidder. In 2013 a Texas doctor by the name of Dr. Jill Van Horn,
outbid the Packard plant property at six million dollars. Dr. Van Horns Prophecy as stated by
the press release entitled Posential Energy in Detroits Assets ( the actual titled has the word
spelled Posential) written by a member (Mark Day) of her organization, her plan was to
resurrect Detroit by providing education , jobs and vocational training to the citys residents,
simultaneously unplugging the financial arteries of the city.(Day 2013) In the document (the
press release) at no time, was there a mention of how Dr. Van Horn planned on accomplishing
those goals. Ultimately she planned to remodel the plant and use it to create jobs in Detroit. It
was unclear, however, what those jobs would be. When it came time to pay the city the money
she promised she never showed and the bid was given to the next highest bidder, Bill Hults.
Bill Hults is a Chicago-area-developer who became the next almost owner of the Packard
Plant ruins. Hults had a chance to buy the Packard plant for a million dollars way before it went
to auction but his investors fell through at the last moment. According to Packard plant no quick
turnaround; Some hurdles: Financing, liens dispute, His plans include a 120-room luxury hotel,
750-plus loft residences, 1,500 single-family homes, and dining and commercial space. (Pinho
2013) This time, unlike family physician Jill Van Horn, Hults had a plan that could actually
create jobs for Detroit and bring some good publicity to Detroit, which would in turn encourage
the emergence of other businesses and possible investors. The ultimate result would be more
employed Detroiters. The only problem was that Hults barely had the money to make the down
payment let alone the possible 750 to 800 million dollars it would take to get the project off the
ground. In the end Hults failed to pay and the Packard plant was turned over into the hands of the
third and final bidder, Fernando Palazuelo.

As of January 2014, Fernando Palazuelo is the proud new owner of the Packard
automotive plant ruins. Fernando Palazuelo hopes to breathe new life into the 40 blighted acres
with homes, retail, offices, recreation and light industry, states Old Cars Weekly in one of their
articles, Demolishing Detroit's Packard auto factory complex. Palazuelo plans require the
destruction of the factory, but according to internet sources he plans to maintain the symbolism
and historical context of the site by restoring the famous factory bridge. If Fernand Palazuelo
succeeds in turning the Packard plant wasteland back into the money making focal point it once
was in the days of the Packard, then not only will the economic growth of the city increase but
the employment rate for Detroit will increase as well. For years now the media has presented
Detroit in a negative light. Articles have been written like Bankruptcy Detroit and pictures of
the Packard Plant ruins scattered with waste and forty years worth of trees and graffiti, but when
the debris is cleaned up and replaced with newly built houses and shopping areas the negativity
will be spun once again to a rags to riches story that America will fall in love with. It is a prime
example of the American Dream. In Bankrupted Detroit, Mathieu Hikaru Desan writes, As
Chryslers much celebrated Imported from Detroit ad campaign has made clear, Detroit is a
brand, defined as much by an imagined past as by its present, and even the boosted future is
quintessentially an American dreaming. According to Desan, Stories about Detroit often
follow the same formula. He says that, First were reminded of the citys former greatness.
Detroit is the Motor City, the Arsenal of Democracy, Motown, and the birthplace of the
American middle class.(Desan 2013) There is nothing wrong with fantasy and entertainment if
it means that people will have an opportunity to work and provide for themselves and their
families. Also even if Palazuelos plan for the Packard plant does not come to fruition the high

unemployment rate will decrease with the jobs provided by the construction and deconstruction
of the Packard plant area.
This leads to the second solution to the problem of high unemployment rates in Detroit.
As I have mentioned before the media has a huge role in Detroits economic growth or decline.
According to an article written by the LAEDC Kyser Center for Economic Research in Los
Angeles California, The entertainment industry employed nearly 162,000 wage and salary
workers in Los Angeles County during 2011, equivalent to nearly 5% of the 3.3 million private
sector wage and salary workers in the county. In addition, the industry employed more than
85,000 free-lance professionals and other independent contract workers. With a combined total
of 247,000 workers, this is one of the largest industries in the county.(LAEDC 2012)
For my second solution I propose that in place of the old Packard plant, Detroit builds a
Film and TV Productions Facility, it would be model loosely after the MM Pictures Studios in
Pontiac, Michigan. Research has shown that since the early 2000s many movies have been
filmed in the city of Detroit, most of whom were also produced in the MM Picture Studios
facility. This had much to do with the tax incentives given to the film industry during the time
former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm was in office. According to an article written by the
Detroit Free Press in 2013, Snyder inherited one of the most generous film incentive programs
in the country from former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Under that program, the state
refunded 40% to 42% of a production company's qualified expenses with no limit to how
much could be awarded giving way to what some called a golden age of Michigan
filmmaking.(Durkin 2013) The reason I am suggesting that Detroit build a Film and TV
Productions Facility is that it is guaranteed to produce more jobs for Detroit. According to the
LAEDC, In addition to the 247,000 jobs that are tied directly to the entertainment industry,

industry activity creates additional jobs indirectly, both through the businesses that supply to the
entertainment industry (caterers, florists, and so on) and through spending in the local economy
by workers in the entertainment and supplier industries.(LAEDC 2012) The facility can create
opportunities for businesses that are already in the city of Detroit, as well as promote a different
image for Detroit. In the book Media and Society: Critical Perspectives (2nd Edition), the author
Graeme Burton say, It is taken for granted that the media do have influenceover attitudes,
values, and the terms in which we understand the world. In order to improve the employment
rate in Detroit, there has to be an improvement in the way the media presents Detroit. Based on
the research I have gathered, building a Film and TV Productions Facility would solve the
problem of a high unemployment rate in the city of Detroit.

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