...so you want to force people who don't live somewhere to be forced to pay taxes into it one the grounds that they used to live there.
That seems like a rather dangerous precedent.
Easily enough done if you get some sort of regional government authorities going early enough. Maybe as an answer to the Depression or a post WWII plan. It may either be passed on the assumption that Detroit will be the dominant core of the region (only to have later events reverse the positions) or because Detroit's leadership sees a relative decline coming and wants to spread the costs of metro area services among all the communities in the area.
You need a "sweet spot" where the suburbs think they are setting themselves up for the better end of the deal, while Detroit recognizes that things are going to be shifting in such a way that the city will end up being on the needing/receiving end. Or some serendipitous wording of the legislation that ends up applying from suburb to city as much as it was expected to apply from city to suburb.
Oops! I been ninja'd.