An abandoned house in Delray, Detroit.
The city of Detroit has gone through a major economic and demographic decline in recent decades. The population of the city has fallen from a high of 1,850,000 in 1950 to 701,000 in 2013. The automobile industry in Detroit has suffered from global competition and has moved much of the remaining production out of Detroit. Some of the highest crime rates in America are now occurring in Detroit, and huge areas of the city are in a state of severe urban decay. In 2013, Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history.
I recently thought to myself, we should automate the entire city of Detroit.
City planners could get together, a planned out budget could be given to the city by the Federal government, and the entire city could be restructured to where as close to 99% of the city would be automated, as far as homes, factories, businesses, markets, etc., and we should see how practically suspending human manual labor could work.
The city could begin producing many different things to sell & export nationally and internationally (obviously vehicles, but not the same bullshit cars made the same bullshit way), and whatever revenue/profit is made could be pooled, some “divvied up” and given to all the citizens as a ‘fair monthly salary’ of sorts for personal expenditures, and some used to build infrastructure & to supply the citizens with basic human necessities such as solar power for their entire homes (built by 3D printers) to provide energy, electricity, etc., and food and water.
“Interdisciplinary Teams” of newly trained technicians would oversee the entire automated system and orient research projects to continue growth, efficiency and local social evolution. Ideally, no more than 5% of the Detroit population would likely be needed to run the show. Everyone else gets to be free to learn, try new things, teach their kids, be with their families, grow, evolve, etc., instead of being wage slaves. The only people really “working” in Detroit would be the computers and robots, which never need vacation, smoke breaks, or sick days off.
Think about it.
