Calling all cars

RELOCATION OFFER: Would you like to buy a house for just $1,000? You can, provided you’re a police officer in Detroit and willing to move into a deteriorating middle-class district. Not only that, but the city will pay up to $150,000 to renovate your house.

Project 14, which will be extended in future to include firefighters, is named for police code "14", which means a return to normal. Its supporters, among them Mayor Dave Bing, want to encourage police officers to live in the areas where they work. They believe this will act as a deterrent to crime and will lead to the revitalization of local neighbourhoods.

“We hope this serves as a call to action for other corporations, organizations and individuals to live where they work,” Bing told the Financial Times. A former basketball star with the Detroit Pistons, Bing became mayor in 2009, after his predecessor was sent to prison for corruption.

"We hope this will be a call to action." Mayor Dave Bing

Like many urban areas in the US, Detroit has seen residents leaving the city in favour of homes in the suburbs. More than half its police force lives outside Detroit. The downturn in the car industry in 2008 and 2009 was another major blow to the city.

Michael LaFaive, fiscal policy director at the Mackinac Center, a Michigan think tank, is critical of the pilot project. “Everyone should be asking what led the cops to move out of the city in the first place,” LaFaive comments. The answer, he says, is high taxes and over-regulation. “The first thing Mr Bing should do is create an environment where people want to live in Detroit without special incentives.”