While I was getting similar inklings from his writing the real issue reveals itself throughout the article. Detroit's recovery is hindered by government regula

While I was getting similar inklings from his writing the real issue reveals itself throughout the article. Detroit's recovery is hindered by government regulation at city, county, state, and federal levels. At the end they mention Detroit cannot get it MSAs redrawn until 2023!!! Really? Throw in your concern, change is only happening because private corporations, individuals, and even the union, are losing money trying to jump start an area and having to do so because the regulatory structure is working against recovery. Note to government, if you want to end blight you are going to have to vacate government debts against the property with regards to the new owner. Rules would have to be put in place to prevent obvious gaming of the system, but to saddle buyers with costs they didn't not incur only sabotages your stated goal. tl;dr the regulatory structure is sabotaging Detroit's recovery, not the mortgage industry.