It'd be like real-life Minecraft.

Build during the day, and seek shelter at night... rinse, repeat.

Pandora

Xbox live :-P

waiting on spotify 

Lol. I can imagine something similar to [ur=lhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire]The Wire[/url].

A large Bitcoin holder buys up a bunch of homes.  Turns them in to stash houses, hires a gang of youngsters and gives them each burner phones as well as a bitcoin address.  The gang peddles drugs and hands over the loot to a cleaner who launders the money through bitcoin.  The gang gets payed weekly through their bitcoin address.

Sounds like a good cypherpunk book.

Also, it's a relatively cold climate, and with an AC unit, a basement could be ideal for hosting miners.  E-Commerce can be done from a basement as well.

Both of these things would help the Bitcoin community.

3. governmental collapse - it's a good thing. The quicker they let the government of Detroit die completely, the better. There is already a private police force that has started up to good reviews. There is also a private bus system that is probably the best in the nation as far as service goes.

I thought most ppl here knew the golden rule of buying property. Location, then location, and finally location.

The second rule is buy quality for a good price. Not shit for cheap. There is a reason homes in detroit are cheap. It is due to the people who live there. No one wants neighbors that will take revenge on you and yours just because you try to better yourself. Fix up your home, drive a nice car, and take pride in yourself? You are now a target.

Detroit is not Boston in the 60s and 70s. That 5000 dollar home full of lead paint and abestos is there because the ppl in charge of detroit kicked the can down the road one too many times. Maybe in a generation or two the time will come for a rebound.

Luckily we have a Bitcoin arms dealer now! 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=266556.0

We can take over Detroit

The crime rate right now in Detroit is completely insane.

they better pay me 5000 in taxes to live in detroit....

The infrastructure is very worn, but true that could be fixed more easily than building it all from scratch. It would be neat, but there are a few things that could break the project. First, we would need to create jobs so people could work and afford to live there. We would also need to repair the houses to liveable conditions. So while it may only cost $500 to buy a house, it would still cost many thousands to repair them. Then we would have to deal with crime. Those in areas that weren't improving would be targeting the area that is. I have a feeling the few police officers left in Detroit would be hanging around our section, because we would be the only ones paying taxes, but security would still be an issue. I suppose its doable, but we have to first figure out how to recoup our costs so we can continue expanding.

As for property taxes, I'm sure we could just talk to the mayor and perhaps find some business loophole that would lower the taxes for our project while we were getting everything set up. I would think they would be more interested in a reduced tax rate, rather than none at all.


edit* Also, did a bit of looking into it, rather than aiming at the $500 houses, I'd say aiming at the $10,000-$20,000 houses is a better plan. There are actually quite a few of them that don't look like they are in ghettos.

property taxes

I'm not sure knocking down old shoddy buildings for farmland is a very good idea. What do you think the chances are that the old buildings you are demolishing were painted with lead paint? Even if you disposed of the house materials in the proper way (hazmat precautions required, very very expensive) the ground around where the houses were demolished would be unusable due to the contact it had with the house in standing condition.

I think it would be incredibly neat to have a Bitcoin crowd funding project buy up an area, but I think we may have better luck in another area that is insanely cheap. I have often though of buying a lot of land out in a very rural area, and then creating a large business there. Jobs would attract people to move there, and essentially grow the area into a town. Detroit may still be feasible, but perhaps with a different plan than funding by farming.

It could be a flat fee or a %, depends. 

Are you looking for some help in launching the whole thing, or just helping you with the write-up?

Would be willing to help launch, but was waiting to see if others were going to step up.