Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder floated the idea on Thursday of getting the federal government to issue tens of thousands of visas for skilled workers tied specifically to Detroit.

There are hints that the Republican Snyder, a former accountant and business executive who bills himself as “one tough nerd,” means the whole concept as a provocation. For one thing, he nudged Washington by saying “it’s really taking up the offer of the federal government to say that they want to help more.” For another, his vision of 50,000 visas over five years would gobble up much of the existing pool of visas for skilled workers.

As much as this may be the desperate act of a governor whose tool chest isn’t overflowing with ways to help a bankrupt Detroit, the idea isn’t completely far-fetched. Should you be curious about it, I’d point you to several thousand words on the topic in the form of this Forefront story of mine from last year, which considers place-based visas in the U.S. set against the context of Canada’s generally successful provincial visa program.

There are advantages to the approach on all sides. The place of issue gets to fine-tune immigration for its own needs, whether that’s for specific skill sets — Manitoba, for example, has focused on nurses — or warm bodies. It potentially opens up parts of the country to people who may be edged out of traditional immigration centers. But in reporting that piece, it became clear that one of the real hurdles is simple geography. Getting people to stay in place isn’t easy, and it raises legal and ethical questions about restraining one’s right to move freely about the country.

A few tweaks, though, could help, like targeting people who may otherwise have family in Detroit, or creating more of a network of struggling places so that if people decide they like the weather in Baltimore, they’d have the option of picking up and moving there. Place-based visas could be an unworkable plan, but it’s probably fair to say that we haven’t yet figured out exactly why it can’t work.

Nancy Scola is a Washington, DC-based journalist whose work tends to focus on the intersections of technology, politics, and public policy. Shortly after returning from Havana she started as a tech reporter at POLITICO.