Motor City? More like Medical City, says new report about Detroit

Detroit is a city looking for solutions. Urban farms and gardens come up, the DIY culture, small businesses, education and medical are all looked at as fingers to the hand of solution. A recent report makes good evidence that medical could be a big player.

Excerpt from the New York Times:

"Detroit: Motor City to Medical Mecca?" is the provocative title of a report released Thursday by the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research group.

Given the decline of the auto industry, Detroit appears to be hoping that health care will be able to fuel its otherwise stalled economy. Detroit has one of the highest metropolitan unemployment rates in the United States, according to the report, and the area lost more than 70,000 manufacturing jobs from 2002 to 2007.

And while health care may well be part of Detroit's problem (think retiree health costs for automakers), some people are hopeful that it could turn out to be a solution as well. The area's hospital systems say they plan to spend more than $1 billion on capital improvements over the next few years.

While the area has seen the usual flurry of activity in the suburbs, where the hospitals want to expand to try to attract as many high-paying and well-insured patients as they can, the researchers also point to a sizable amount of investment planned for Detroit proper.

Read the entire article here.
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