I think ideology may be clouding your understanding. Unlike the Detroit Free Press, Alternet has a strong political point of view and the article you linked is

I think ideology may be clouding your understanding. Unlike the Detroit Free Press, Alternet has a strong political point of view and the article you linked is simply trying to use the failure of Detroit to score political points for their agenda - not a good place to find out what is really going on. The example you bring up, Detroit city income taxes, was explained in the Free Press article. Originally put in place by the Detroit city government they were then increased in an initative approved by Detroit voters. So, at least in this example, if anyone set Detroit up to fail it was the elected government and voters of Detroit. The article also notes the higher resident versus non-resident rates are typical for city income taxes in Michigan. Or you can just stick with an ideological analysis and always get the answer you like ;)