Don't Whine About the Census, Detroit: Embrace It

Detroit's staggering population loss over the last decade—some 237,500 people—has city politicians predictably calling for a census recount, but two opinion pieces think it's a waste of time. Better to focus on the new, smaller Detroit:

• Detroit Free Press editorial: "The important thing now is for everyone to accept that this is a fundamentally changed city, a hollowed-out version of the Detroit that boasted 1.8 million people in the mid-1950s." City leaders "must focus on creating critical mass in the areas that still have solid population bases, and come up with a credible plan to abandon the infrastructure in other areas, or find suitable, low-impact uses for them."

• Laura Berman, Detroit News: "Has it occurred to anyone that smaller might be beautiful?" she asks. Use the census figures to reimagine a better city, one that's "reconfigured into dense neighborhoods rather than half-vacant tracts," as Mayor Bing has proposed. "With great parks, an abundance of new gardens, major universities and the initiative of a few bold corporations and their leaders, Detroit can seize this moment as the city that's fallen back to Earth."

(More Detroit stories.)