ABSTRACT
Once the driving force of American manufacturing and a vast city of two million residents, Detroit's economy crumbled and now barely 670,000 residents dot 140 square miles of land. Detroit's encounter with bankruptcy marked an important milestone in the development of the neo-liberal city and the death of democratic citizenship. The effort to strengthen the social safety net and reaffirm government's responsibilities to its citizens – a challenge to neo-liberal principles and practice – was made possible because Detroit's bankruptcy threatened the City's iconic Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). The collapse of city services and the appointment of the emergency manager – the very shattering of the social compact between the citizenry and its government – had compelled Detroiters to reconsider their relationship to the state. One of the major sources of contention between the City government and its residents had been the inability of homeowners to buy vacant lots adjacent to their homes.
