ABSTRACT
Historically, economic development in the Detroit metropolitan region emphasized competition as the growth in suburban areas around the city of Detroit led to zero-sum economic development strategies. However, these approaches to economic development, firmly rooted in Public Choice Economics and the Tiebout Hypothesis, may no longer be effective given current levels of resource scarcity, declining revenues, and current best practices in economic development that value collaborative efforts between local governments. In this chapter, we present an overview of the major historical trends in state and local economic development strategies in the Detroit Metropolitan Region and explain how those strategies helped to contribute to the 2013 municipal bankruptcy in the city of Detroit. Recognizing the bankruptcy as a type of policy punctuation, we use the case of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) to show how more collaborative approaches to economic development, especially in regards to cultural attractions, have occurred in the region. Such collaborative frameworks are needed as cities seek new ways of implementing economic development to improve their long-term sustainability. Collaborative approaches for cultural attractions that help drive economic development, where governments work together to achieve more than what one single government can achieve alone, can help to generate new pathways for economic development in older, legacy cities like Detroit that have experienced significant declines in population and jobs.
