Detroit wants to be the first big American city to tax land value

From the vantage point of a new apartment on the 33rd floor of the Book Tower, a stunning 1920s Italian-Renaissance-style skyscraper in downtown Detroit, two aspects of the city are visible. Look south-east, towards Canada, and you see a skyline thick with cranes. New towers are shooting up, old ones being rebuilt, and the pavements below are thick with pedestrians. Cross to the other bedroom, however, and you get quite a different view. Right up to the edge of a highway entire city blocks are occupied by nothing but tarmac. At 11am an ocean of surface parking is uninterrupted by even a single car.

Just over a decade ago Detroit became the biggest American city to go bankrupt. Since then its city centre has made a remarkable recovery. The Book Tower, which was completely derelict in 2009, has been rebuilt at a cost of over $300m by Bedrock, a property firm owned by Dan Gilbert, Michigan’s richest man. Yet though downtown is humming, huge parts of the city remain blighted.