Detroit residents expressed differing opinions on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's suggestion the city be repopulated with immigrants.

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Some critics of Bloomberg's Sunday statement, which suggested immigrants to the United States be sent to live and work in Detroit to bolster the troubled city, said the idea would do little to combat its double-digit employment rate and other recession-related issues, The Detroit News reported Monday.

"There are no jobs to be had here," resident Mary Ann Robertson said. "There are no industries here."

However, others said the plan could help the country's fourth-largest city grow to rival New York in size.

"Anything that could bolster our (population) and our tax base, I am certainly in favor of," lifelong Detroit resident Adrian Green, 41, said. "Detroit needs families like no other city in the country, since we had the biggest population loss of any major city in the country in the last 10-20 years."

Bloomberg made his comments on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"If I were the federal government, assuming we could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together, you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit and live there for five to 10 years, start businesses, take jobs or whatever," Bloomberg said. "You would populate Detroit overnight because half the world wants to come here."