Guess hip-hop isn't so hardcore after all.

No further evidence is needed that bling is out and bland is in after the election of 65-year-old Dave Bing as mayor of troubled Detroit. Seven years ago, the city swept 31-year-old Kwame Kilpatrick into office, billing him as the nation's first hip-hop mayor. But after years of scandal and fiscal fiascoes, it pulled the plug on Kilpatrick and installed a man known as a steady, heady guy who makes things happen, both as a basketball Hall of Famer and one of the nation's most respected businessmen.

Bing has some task. Detroit's troubles extend well beyond a young mayor in over his head, one forced to resign after admitting that he lied to city investigators about his affair with an aide. The city has a reported budget deficit between $250 to $300 million, double-digit unemployment and a tsunami of foreclosures.

Moreover, it has a bad rep. Under Kilpatrick, the proud city became a laughingstock before its financial troubles began to be reflected in cities big and small throughout the nation. Its public schools can barely be called places of education, so much that the state appointed a financial manager earlier this year to handle the system.

Bing's clear charge is to heal and revive – challenges that require the kind of tough decisions needed by any successful entrepreneur. Or anyone who's a survivor, like Bing, who endured a serious eye injury that threatened his playing career but performed another seven seasons.

In 1980, two years after his retirement from the NBA, Bing launched the Bing Steel Company, which evolved into the Bing Group, a steel manufacturer and supplier to the auto industry. It grew it into one of the area's most successful businesses, employing about 500 people.

After winning the mayoral election, Bing promised to bring a businessman's eye – and scalpel – to Detroit. He'll almost certainly have to lay off more than the 334 city workers proposed by his predecessor and the man he defeated in the special election, Ken Cockrel Jr. He says he'll also consider a proposed 10 percent pay cut for city workers and cuts in various areas.

Neither Bing nor his team of advisers, which will be led by Denise Ilitch, daughter of Detroit Tigers and Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch, will draw a salary. "None of them are looking for a job," Bing said. "They just want to see the city turned around."

And they've tabbed another kind of Bad Boy to do it. A bland one who will probably get the job done.

Photos: Getty, AP