Beating up Detroit is like kicking someone when they’re down,but that’s my job, and I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do. Today in the WSJ, they point out the absence of grocers, car dealers, coffee, you name it:

DETROIT — They call this the Motor City, but you have to leave town to buy a Chrysler or a Jeep.

Borders Inc. was founded 40 miles away, but the only one of the chain’s bookstores here closed this month. And Starbucks Corp., famous for saturating U.S. cities with its storefronts, has only four left in this city of 900,000 after closures last summer.

No national grocery chain operates a store here…. The city’s 22.8% unemployment rate is among the highest in the U.S.; 30% of residents are on food stamps.

“As the city loses so much, the tax base shrinks and the city has to cut back services,” said Margaret Dewar, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan. That causes such hassles for retailers as longer police-response times, as well as less-frequent snow plowing and trash pickup….Navigating zoning rules and other red tape to develop land for big-box stores that might cater to a low-income clientele is daunting.

What can you get in Detroit? Stuff from Dollar General, which is actually expanding in the area… and Tim Hortons. Yeah, Tim Hortons just opened downtown. And, honestly, in that respect, I envy Detroit. What I wouldn’t give for a Timbit from there right now. I haven’t had any of those since Anna smuggled a box of them all the way from Canada to our suite at the Bellagio earlier this year.

Of course, phoenixes spring from ashes when you least expect it, so I can see a wide variety of possibilities for Detroit. The place has kind of a clean slate, when you think about it. Maybe a new utopia will spring up, a tightly-knit city free of suburbs (which will have since crumbled) and punctuated with local shops and restaurants, instead of big-box chains. Or a Temporary Autonomous Zone, a Bartertown, a libertarian outpost with its own gold-standard scrip, or a migratory destination – I mean, now that Portland’s full – that serves as a place for youngins’ with big ideas, ready to start up the next Silicon Valley, maybe launching new technology along the lines of our green, alternative-energy ideals.

Okay, maybe I’m being way too idealistic. But hey, in case of zombie infestation, we can take up residence at the Livonia Mall. Wait – does it have a helicopter pad? That’ll be essential.