Inexpensive land, "fixer-upper" real estate, and an infrastructure designed to serve twice as many people as it does today - all of these factors are listed among Detroit's challenges.

Looked at another way, and in tandem with some careful right-sizing efforts, these features are Detroit's greatest asset: room to create. People, especially down-trodden Detroiters, seem to make a habit of listing all the things that Detroit is missing. I don't think it is foolishly optimistic (optimistic, sure, but not foolishly so) to look at those missing pieces as opportunities. Combined with a low cost-of-living, the features I listed above should make Detroit a mecca for social, business and artistic entrepreneurs.

To become that, Detroit's leaders must commit to valuing and fostering three things: diversity, flexibility and innovation.

While we suffer from a cultural legacy that doesn't prioritize entrepreneurialism in workers, Detroit has a history of innovation, from music to manufacturing. This tradition should be remembered and now: democratized. Micro-investments in risky new ideas, both in business and the non-profit sector, small business development, education that bolsters creativity, even in non-creative fields - all of these activities can encourage new ideas and empower people to run with them.

Flexibility leads to change at all levels - not just from the leadership-down. Flexible zoning, responsiveness to community organizations and creative economic development tools can further contribute to Detroit's elasticity as businesses and neighborhoods change.

Detroit's leadership must focus on creating meaningful diversity, economically and in our neighborhoods. To do that, we must actually value diversity - not as a backdrop for the "creative class," but because diversity, in communities as in the natural world, equals adaptability and creativity.

It would be foolish to think that Detroit can effect a values change fast enough to also sweep up the issues of crime, poverty, safety and public education. And no young work force Detroit successfully attracts will stick around once they have their own children, if these urgent challenges are not met. But solutions for all of these problems must be sought with an understanding that they are interconnected. Public education, for example, would also benefit from intentional diversity: more middle-class parents lead to better performing schools.

Young workers are eager to play a role in shaping their communities. If Detroit can figure out how to make them feel, and then see, that they will be rewarded for innovating here, the echo chamber will reverberate in every segment of Detroit's community.

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