
What if Google bought Detroit? - luckyisgood
http://brandonhtomlin.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-if-google-bought-detroit.html
======
tptacek
Am I misreading this article, or is the author confusing buying all of
Detroit's $20bn of outstanding debt (an unbelievably terrible idea) with
buying the actual city? To "buy the city", you'd need to buy all its
residential, commercial, and industrial real estate. There are $1 houses in
Detroit, but there are also million dollar houses there, along with 8-figure
office towers.

I think this analysis is a little silly.

~~~
sneak
> What would be appealing to Google would be the ability to produce city wide
> legislature that allowed them to use the entire city of Detroit as real life
> testing ground for all of their technologies without having to comply to
> city laws and regulations.

...and turn it into a dictatorship, too, apparently.

Someone's a bit confused.

~~~
xxpor
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_Distric...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_District)

~~~
tptacek
Isn't this just unincorporated land? There are big patches of unincorporated
land in every state; they aren't lawless wastelands, but are instead managed
and services by their parent counties and states.

~~~
xxpor
No, they used this Improvement District to gain even more power over the land
then even an incorporated city would have,

>There are big patches of unincorporated land in every state; they aren't
lawless wastelands, but are instead managed and services by their parent
counties and states.

Tangentially, this isn't true. NJ has no unincorporated land. Most states in
the north eastern quadrant of the country have their unincorporated land
organized as townships, which have elected boards of trustees or similar.

~~~
tptacek
Huh. Neat. Didn't realize that about NJ and the NE. Thanks!

~~~
xxpor
No problem :)

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ebbv
We in Michigan are already a bit disillusioned with Google.

We gave Google a huge ($38 million) tax break when they opened an office here
in Ann Arbor with promises to hire 1,000 workers at the Ann Arbor office.

Instead staffing has been around 300 people at that office.

The state actually filed a tax lien against Google due to this violation of
the agreement.

So I doubt you'll see the state getting into bed with Google again soon.

~~~
grbalaffa
According to this, the tax lien is not related to the tax break for the Ann
Arbor office:

[http://www.annarbor.com/business-
review/googles-31-million-m...](http://www.annarbor.com/business-
review/googles-31-million-michigan-tax-lien-related-to-disputed-corporate-tax-
returns/)

~~~
ebbv
Initial reporting indicated otherwise:

[http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/31-million-tax-
lien-...](http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/31-million-tax-lien-filed-
against-google-for-non-payments-of-michigan-business-tax/)

Basically stating that the office in charge of auditing companies who got the
MEGA grants and making sure they qualified for them wasn't doing its job and
on review it turned out Google didn't qualify and owed back taxes based on
that.

But regardless, if the tax lien _is_ unrelated (which seems weird to me,
especially since the figures involved fit perfectly with the MEGA credit),
Google still hasn't held up its end of the agreement.

------
agwa
Imagine this blog post but with Google replaced with Exxon Mobil (which has an
even higher market cap), and Google-friendly public policy replaced with Exxon
Mobil-friendly public policy.

There's a damn good reason we don't want corporations to be able to "buy"
cities.

~~~
ams6110
Yeah we tried company towns. Didn't work so well.

~~~
mrb
In China, it seems to work well to the financial benefit of the company. There
are companies owning entire "cities" with houses for the employees, farms to
produce eggs, schools for the kids, etc.

~~~
rmc
Or China is censoring all the news. After all, Big Brother has _increased_ the
chocolate ratio to 20 grammes per week!

------
tomkarlo
This is nonsensical. Bailing out Detroit wouldn't give Google (or anyone else)
any incremental sway over the auto makers. Nor would it give them some kind of
carte blanche to act as a benevolent dictator and make changes to legislation
without normal democratic process.

~~~
roc
That's the part that's particularly laughable. The auto industry operates
largely, if not almost entirely, outside the city limits these days.

Further, why would Google even need their help, let alone pay $20bn to attempt
to strong-arm them into some partnership?

Google, should they want to develop their own vehicles, wouldn't need more
than one or two plants for years. And there's plenty to go around in SE
Michigan. There's no need for legislative sway and they can be had for
significantly less than billions of dollars.

------
jpdoctor
The poster is confusing the amount of insolvency with the value of Detroit.
The value of the city far exceeds the valuation of Google.

~~~
tomkarlo
The poster's confused, but I'm not sure it's necessarily true that the city of
Detroit should have a value that's greater than zero. If the current cost of
paying pensions and the cost of maintaining (underused) infrastructure is much
larger than the expected tax base, than the value of the city (not including
private property) could well be negative.

That said, it's unlikely that's true, because there's still a lot of option
value available if someone's willing to make hard decisions and/or shed some
costs through bankruptcy. (But it's going to be really unpopular, like not
paying pensions or simply shutting down city services to certain
neighborhoods.)

America doesn't really have a model for _shrinking_ city infrastructure.
Detroit is the first test of what happens when a major modern city stops
growing and starts shrinking in a long-term way. It's hard to scale down
government and infrastructure in a smooth way.

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javajosh
Isn't this the plot to RoboCop?

~~~
astrodust
Detroit might be bankrupt, but the statue of Robocop is going to be awesome:
[http://www.avclub.com/articles/detroits-robocop-statue-is-
al...](http://www.avclub.com/articles/detroits-robocop-statue-is-almost-done-
and-its-god,97725/)

~~~
KevinEldon
Yes, but perhaps for some other RoboCop loving city or individual. Pool your
cash now to buy it at auction and help Detroit dig out of that $20/bn in debt.

~~~
astrodust
Bankruptcy seems to have worked for Mexico and other states, why not Detroit?

------
rayiner
> What would be appealing to Google would be the ability to produce city wide
> legislature that allowed them to use the entire city of Detroit as real life
> testing ground for all of their technologies without having to comply to
> city laws and regulations.

Ah yes, democracy, ever holding back technology and progress.

------
freehunter
How many science fiction novels take place in a corporate-owned metropolis,
where everything you do is monitored and logged to your profile? How long
until we become Deus Ex?

~~~
aero142
Do you have any evidence that isn't based on a video game plot?

~~~
freehunter
Obviously not, since a corporation has never actually bought a city like the
proposed Google buyout of Detroit. I was making a glib remark about possible
downsides to a Google city.

So in that spirit: Yes, in TV shows like Deadwood and Eureka.

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luckyisgood
This quote intrigued me to share this article for further discussion because I
want to see this happen sooner than later:

"What would be appealing to Google would be the ability to produce city wide
legislature that allowed them to use the entire city of Detroit as real life
testing ground for all of their technologies without having to comply to city
laws and regulations. This would allow them to test cutting edge technologies
in everyday scenarios. It would also present the authority needed to re-
imagine how a city operates on an information level, and not only to test
their driver-less cars, but test products such as mobile commerce, free public
internet and free public transportation as well."

~~~
smacktoward
Yes, it is definitely hard to imagine anything going wrong in a scenario where
the entire population of a city is turned over to a corporation to use as
guinea pigs.

------
mdasen
The issue with an article like this is that you can't really buy a city.

The article talks about how Detroit has $20B in debts and Google could afford
to spend $20B. But that wouldn't be the cost of Detroit which would also
include all of the assets that the city owns. Even then, what have they
bought? Things like the roads and sewer system? But they wouldn't really
control those things since the residents of Detroit would elect their
government.

But let's say that Google could own a city and rule it as a dictatorship
within America. "Google could convince the existing car manufacturers to start
producing Google Cars and a premium rate. [sic]" Self-driving cars are still a
while away. Ignoring that for a moment (and ignoring the fact that Ford and
Chrysler moved out of Detroit), I understand the thought: "how great would it
be for the Detroit automakers to have a higher-margin draw to their products?"
That would be great in a certain sense, but wouldn't really work. If it were
easy and cheap to do, others could easily follow. If it's hard and expensive,
Google isn't going to just donate those profits to the GM/Ford/Chrysler
shareholders and workers - they're going to want those profits for Google
shareholders and Google workers. However, the whole thing ignores the fact
that Google owning Detroit and such a partnership have nothing to do with each
other.

"What would be appealing to Google would be the ability to produce city wide
legislature. . . [sic]" Again, this goes back to the issue that Detroit would
still be democratically governed. Sure, Google could use power and influence
to shape legislation, but isn't that what, say, Comcast tries to do? The idea
that Google wouldn't have to comply with laws and regulations is laughable
(and would be terrifying if it weren't so ridiculous).

It's always interesting to think, "how would someone/some organization I
respect run a government." However, there just isn't logic in this article.
Democratic governance negates most of it, equal protection guarantees mean
that Google couldn't be placed above the law, and any partnerships with other
companies could be made regardless of "owning" Detroit.

~~~
tptacek
Buying Detroit's $20Bn debt would get Google a stack of papers, but not the
sewer system or the roads. I think that's what you meant to say, but it wasn't
clear to me.

------
oldmanjoe
Wouldn't that essentially be the beginnings of Fascism with a completely
corporation owned city? Next Google could presumably install its "manager",
lets call it the "Director/Dictator", that has no worries about democratic
niceties and can therefore pass any legislation Google wishes (goodbye social
justice, hello minimum work standards, corporate friendly legal environment).

~~~
pnathan
big nit: facism is an absurdly fuzzy concept; the popular definition winds up
being "people more authoritarian than I like". If you dig up Mussolini's
comments, it's something more akin to making the civil religion the major
ideology of the people.

Anyway. I don't know what would happen, but a corp-owned city is a _classic_
dystopia scenario. I've lived enough of my life working for corporations; I
don't really want their tentacles creeping into my entire life and making my
body's entire existence about maximizing their profit, or being research
subjects, etc.

------
chiph
Let's bring back the company town!¹ Where you shop at the company store using
company scrip. If profits are down, your hours get cut but the rent at your
company-owned house doesn't. And if you get fired, you have to move out with
little notice.

\--------------------

¹
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town)

------
bfwi
I'm not sure you can buy the right to legislate as you want, even if you own
all the property in a given city.

------
syncerr
FYI - This is the plot behind Showtime's Continuum
([http://www.showcase.ca/continuum](http://www.showcase.ca/continuum)), where
private corporations buyout the existing national government.

They don't portray human-rights well in this new world.

~~~
mkr-hn
This is on the SyFy channel in the US.

------
thehme
I think for $20 billion Google could just buy the manufacturing companies in
Detroit, get the cars built, still help with jobs in the city, and save a ton
of money. They should not have to pay for other people's bad decisions that
have put the city in the mess it is in.

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newman314
Umm. I'm surprised no one has mentioned OCP yet. All we are missing is the
cyborg.

------
kintamanimatt
The biggest risk would be Google shutting down Detroit in a few years, like
many of their other products. I'm sure they'd allow the users to migrate their
houses out to another city provider with plenty of notice!

------
xrd
I think the biggest problem is the question: would they be buying the assets?
Or, the assets and liabilities? Future pension payments is a huge challenge
for the current owners and future owners.

------
mempko
Fascism in America. I mean, who cares what 700,000 people think. All that
democracy stuff is just in the way of google giving us awesome toys. What a
bunch of tripe.

~~~
muzz
Detroit lost its democracy when the state appointed an Emergency Manager:
[http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/11/michigans-emergency-
manager-l...](http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/11/michigans-emergency-manager-law-
another-front-in-the-war-for-union-survival/)

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diminoten
From a legal standpoint, how would such a thing even work?

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6d0debc071
Where's Google's leverage meant to be coming from in all this? What do they
need you for _after_ you've paid?

------
midnitewarrior
They'd do better if they bought a corn field and built it up from scratch as a
city.

------
captainmuon
We used to think of powerful megacorporations ruling cities as a dystopia. But
if I take a look at what our actual governments and authorities are doing
(PRISM, Stand your ground laws, voting rights act, recent news of censorship
in Britain etc. pp.) it seems it couldn't be much worse "under Google's rule".
sigh.

Of course, the blog post is a bit naive, but it probably was just meant as a
discussion starter. I've been thinking about a very similar plan.

This is what I'd do if I were filthy rich and ruthless: \- Buy a large part of
the city. I mean properties, buildings, infrastructure. \- Arrange special
terms with city and state. Make Googletown into a separate entity, with its
own city government etc.. If you wait for another major crash, the US might be
so desperate that you can arrange for extraterritorial status. \- Maybe one
could arrange that unused interesting property can be expropriated or
forcefully sold. \- Make Googletown into a Special Economic Zone. \- You don't
only get the property, but also everybody who lives on it. Not as your
servants :-) but as citizens of Googletown.

Why? The idea is that you'll have a lot of very cheap workers, who will be
extremely loyal to you for saving their city, if you pull it off correctly.
You can produce all kinds of (cheap) goods at competitive prices, and sell
them on the north American market. And you can run experiments - sure, Google
Cars, but I'm more interested in _social_ experiments (see below).

Why would Detroit/Michigan/the US agree to my plan? \- It would provide
immediate relief. As someone in this thread noticed, the debt is much less
than the total value of the city. Paying the debt is peanuts in comparison. \-
They'd get rid of many bad = cheap parts of the city. \- You'd take care of
the people for them - providing healthcare, social security, police, etc..

How would I rule Googletown? I'd let it organize democratically, but I'd take
care that I'd control the general direction of development. On one hand, I'd
try to make it a liberal model town / experiment. Gay marrage, strict gun
control, universal healthcare... a republican's nightmare :-).

On the other hand, I'm trying to run a very troubled town. People are poor,
not well educated, there's a lot of crime. People are accustomed to doing
stuff their way, and won't likely adapt well to a googletopian society. So
it's not just carrot, but unfortunately also stick. (Wow, that sounded really
Machiavellian. Honestly, I hope no one ever tries to pull this off.). One
necessary thing would be to crack down on organized crime and gangs. Increase
police presence, expell all gang members from the city bounds. Ban all
weapons. Regard organized crime as treason against the people, and have
draconian punishments for it. Robocops.

Again, I find it sad and scary that we've come to the point where I'm actually
considering a benevolent corporate dictatorship to be a worthwhile alternative
to our current system.

------
Philadelphia
Would they rename it Delta City?

~~~
samspenc
Naah, that would only happen if Delta Airlines bought it.

~~~
newman314
I think you are missing the reference to Robocop

~~~
samspenc
Ooops my apologies! Been almost 20 years since I saw that flick!

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segmondy
geeks and politics, just like water and oil.

