It is another sign of the desperation in Detroit. Detroit’s best chance of survival is to rebrand itself as the Amsterdam of America, says former mayoral candidate Geoffrey Fieger.

“I could turn it around in five minutes,” he told the hosts of Michigan Matters.

“I’d shovel the snow and I’d clean the streets and parks. Then, I’d tell the police department to leave marijuana alone and don’t spend one dime trying to enforce marijuana laws. I also would not enforce prostitution laws and I’d make us the new Amsterdam.”

If we would adopt these policies, “we would attract young people,” he said. “You make Detroit a fun city. A place they want to live, and they would flock here.”

Fieger’s comments show the desperation in which city officials are grasping at straws to save one of America’s most storied cities.

Detroit used to be synonymous with wealth and prosperity. It was a city humming with big-finned cars and Motown rhythms. Factories churned out products that ended up on store shelves around the world. Full employment empowered high salaries, flourishing schools and manicured storefronts, with flashy neon lights lining the boulevards. Multiple generations of families shared the same streets and barbecues.

In its heyday, Detroit had the highest median income and highest rate of home ownership in the country. It also had one of the highest standards of living of any major city in America—and hence, probably the world.

People flocked to Detroit to transform the American dream into reality.

But today, Detroit is synonymous with poverty, gangs, crime, population decline, abandoned neighborhoods, gutted factories, broken families, broken schools, and broken just about everything.

The city has lost over 1 million people since 1950, and has over 60,000 lonely, abandoned and unused properties.

But will turning Detroit into a city of pot heads and crack hookers reverse the decline? Is that a real solution?

Some people think so. It would reduce the crowding in Detroit’s jails, and free up police manpower to focus on other crimes.

“Don’t let any self-appointed, self-righteous person say we couldn’t do it,” Fieger says. “The city of Detroit couldn’t get any worse.”

Actually Detroit could get worse, and will if it follows Fieger’s advice.

Fieger says Detroit should raise more money by upping tax rates. “We’ve been saying here for 40 years, if we give breaks to industry, they will create jobs. But it hasn’t worked.”

Raising taxes is guaranteed to not encourage more business growth and jobs, but what it is guaranteed to do is make any borderline profitable businesses unprofitable—and thus decrease the number of jobs.

But Detroit’s problems go far beyond its tax rates.

Legalizing pot and prostitution only addresses the symptoms of Detroit’s real sickness. It does nothing to fix the real cause of Detroit’s disease.

The breakdown in Detroit’s families is the bigger problem. Broken families are the heart and core of its poverty problems, gang problems, drug problems, crime problems, prostitution problems, dismal high school graduation rate problems, lack of community problems.

Although most people won’t admit it, if Detroit could just fix this one thing, many of its problems would fix themselves. But that is too politically charged and incorrect for any of our leaders today.

Fatherless families do nothing but burden society. Detroit officials need to focus on fixing the family instead of promoting things like drug usage and prostitution—things that wreck families.

Read Stephen Flurry’s latest column to find out where this family breakdown is leading.