Other cities in crisis can learn from Detroit’s bankruptcy-fostered Degrowth Machine Politics.

The city of Detroit was one of the major casualties of the 2008 financial crisis, finally filing for bankruptcy in July 2013. Seth Schindler looks at how the city’s bankruptcy has acted as a catalyst for change. He writes that Detroit has moved from a ‘growth machine politics’ characterised by a push for economic growth at the expense of urban services, to a policy of ‘degrowth’ which rejects fiscal austerity in favor of economic diversification and creative land use.