Detroit to be shrunken and bulldozed

[J]

Guardian Link

Detroit mayor plans to shrink city by cutting services to some areas
Services such as sewage and policing may be cut off to force people out of desolate areas where houses cost as little as £100

* Chris McGreal in Washington
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 16.28 GMT


Fifty years ago, Detroit was home to almost 2 million people. Today, many of the once bustling, car clogged streets of the motor city are largely abandoned. The population is less than half what it was. One in five houses is empty, and the crisis has only deepened with the mass foreclosures of recent years.

Now the city authorities, faced with talk of bankruptcy, plan to downsize Detroit by cutting off services, such as policing and sewerage, to large parts of the blighted metropolis in an effort to pressure residents to move to core neighbourhoods of a smaller city.

In some parts of Detroit, 80% of housing is empty amid widespread unemployment. Many have simply abandoned properties now worth a fraction of the mortgages on them.

Property prices have collapsed to the point where houses can be had for $100, although the average price is $7,500 (£5,000). The city council gives homes away to those prepared to pay the outstanding property taxes.

The mayor of Detroit, Dave Bing, said that his administration cannot afford to go on providing services such as schools, firefighters, buses and rubbish collection to large areas of the city where the population has dropped sharply and fewer people paying property taxes has left a $300m hole in the budget.

Bing told the Detroit Free Press that no one will be forced to move but those who remain outside of designated parts of the city "need to understand that they're not going to get the kind of services they require".

"They are much better off moving into a more dense area so that we can provide them with the services they need: that would be water, sewer, lighting, public safety - all of that," Bing said. "We think that getting our city to be more dense with its population is the right route."

Bing said that next year he will launch a plan to encourage people to concentrate themselves in about nine neighbourhoods that account for two-thirds of Detroit. Houses in the remaining one third, about 45 square miles, are eventually likely to be bulldozed to make way for new projects such as urban farms.

The city administration is expected to announce which neighbourhoods are to form the core of a revived Detroit in the spring but they will include those areas of the city which are still relatively well populated but losing residents.

"We want to make sure that, before those neighbourhoods deteriorate much more, we give them support," Bing said.

The move was welcomed by John George, who heads a group, Blight Busters, which has revitalised communities by rehabilitating abandoned houses for the very poor.

"I think it's a brilliant idea. Detroit needs to be leaner and greener and we need to right size the city to match the population as well as the budget," he said.

George said that although residents of large parts of Detroit will be pressured to move by the reduction in services, they should see it as an opportunity.

"There's an opportunity here now the housing bubble has burst. In the city of Detroit in just about any solid neighbourhood, you can buy a two, three-bedroom brick house for $15,000. There's really an opportunity to move out of shacks, substandard housing, and to move in to more of a substantial home," he said.

"I think that people who do their homework and don't let fear engulf them should look at this as an opportunity to move from a decrepit, blighted community in to one that is healthy, clean, safe, affordable."

Still under debate is what to do with the areas of Detroit that the mayor would like to empty out. One plan under discussion is to bulldoze the housing and establish a 2,000-acre farm in one neighbourhood.

George said that urban farms could transform Detroit.

"We should dismantle, deconstruct those areas and turn them over to urban farms where we are tilling a thousand or fifteen hundred acres and we are growing fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and creating jobs in canning and shipping and packaging. We could have half a dozen of those farms spread out across the city because the city unfortunately lacks quality supermarkets. It's really a fresh fruit desert in many ways.

"There's no reason why this land when it is cleared cannot be ploughed and be an asset to the community."

So I guess it's official, parts of Detroit will soon be formally abandoned, demolished and turned into farmland. And $7500 homes, jesus, it must suck even more than I imagined.

[Zed Snardbody]

This is probably the best thing that could happen to the city. It is in such disrepair on on the verge of collapse. I'll have to see if I can find the source for it but I once heard that the Detroit Police SWAT team serves more high risk warrants in a month then Los Angeles PD SWAT serves in a year.

[Soontir C'boath]

I wonder what is the range of the outstanding property taxes people have to pay to be "given" a home.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Oh, the irony! The motor city of America will be the first one to introduce urban farms and other post-oil based economy measures. This could actually be a great opportunity for Detroit to become one of the most ecologically proactive cities in the US. 20 years from now when other cities struggle to maintain their vast suburban sprawl livable, the people of Detroit will smile smugly in their walkable communities with lots of locally produced food.

[Archaic`]

Random question. Just who owns all those now empty houses? How many of them are still in good repair, and just how big a percentage of America's homeless population could potentially be housed if there was a political will to do so? The Urban farms are a wonderful idea, and I'd imagine there's certainly enough properties which really should be demolished at this point from disrepair anyway, but it seems a waste to get rid of homes that are actually servicable.

[General Zod]

Random question. Just who owns all those now empty houses? How many of them are still in good repair, and just how big a percentage of America's homeless population could potentially be housed if there was a political will to do so? The Urban farms are a wonderful idea, and I'd imagine there's certainly enough properties which really should be demolished at this point from disrepair anyway, but it seems a waste to get rid of homes that are actually servicable.

If they've been foreclosed chances are good that the city or the banks own a sizable chunk of them. When they're low as $100 though . . . I honestly don't think it's likely they're in very good condition.

[Norade]

I hope that this turns out to be a stunning success and that other cities choose to grow denser and create urban farms and green space because of how well it worked.

[Johonebesus]

I just wish they could do something more than coercing residents to move by cutting them off. How many of these folks are unemployed or under-employed or on low, fixed incomes? How many owe a mortgage and would have a hard time selling the house and moving? I worry that a fair number of the people effected aren't in a position to move into a new home, and this will just place more hardship on already burdened folks. Not to say that the goal of concentrating the population isn't desirable, but there ought to be a process to minimize the suffering of the people in the blighted areas.

[CaiusWickersham]

Coming soon from Omni Consumer Products: Delta City.

[Molyneux]

Right now, what I'm wondering is if it might be a good idea to buy up some cheap land in the worse areas of Detroit. If a couple of hundred dollars will buy a house, there's got to be something useful you could do for that small of an initial investment.

[Justice]

Finally! Living around the Detroit area, it's amazing to go through neighborhoods that literally have 3 blocks and two families.

Really, the biggest problem with Detroit is one of the biggest cities in the US in land-area alone. They absorbed and annexed so many small townships and such that now they have almost no money and tons of area to cover (which, by the way, are barely inhabited). This plan is getting a lot of resistance from residents, but it's really necessary. Detroit needs to concentrate its people so they can actually start providing competent services for the tax dollars they can raise. Maybe we can actually get a grocery store back into the city again.

[Broomstick]

Random question. Just who owns all those now empty houses? How many of them are still in good repair, and just how big a percentage of America's homeless population could potentially be housed if there was a political will to do so? The Urban farms are a wonderful idea, and I'd imagine there's certainly enough properties which really should be demolished at this point from disrepair anyway, but it seems a waste to get rid of homes that are actually servicable.

Many (though not all) are entirely abandoned. Some are repairable, but many others are burnt out, or fallen in, or already so collapsed you probably wouldn't realize there had been a house there if you blinked while driving by.

Some examples of the neighborhoods they're referring to are below. You can see where there used to be buildings but are now empty or nearly empty lots:




Keep in mind - this is not a rural area or suburb, this is in the heart of a urban area. Or what used to be an urban area. These landscapes used to be a solid city.

[eion]

Have they released any details on what form these "urban farms" will take? Are they going to auction off land to agro corps? Will there be a new homestead movement with Detroit residents being given a few city blocks of their own with the promise that they will occupy it and farm the land?

[Broomstick]

There is at least one man who approached the city council with an intention to purchase property and with money/means to buy it in hand, provided they switched the zoning from residential and commercial to agricultural as the tax rates are very strongly different. So no, it's not a corporation it's an entrepreneur. In at least one case.

[GuppyShark]

But adding expense and energy costs for farming technologies in areas where traditional farming is actually MORE sustainable and less energy intensive does not make sense!

Agreed. The notion of installing specialised 'sustainable' technologies into the Detroit scenario seems like a solution looking for a problem.

Detroit is shrinking because it cannot afford to maintain the existing infrastructure. Adding additional infrastructure costs would be counterproductive, when all they have to do is use the land more effectively.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

How do they plan to clear off all the criminal gangs that dominate the land?

[eion]

How do they plan to clear off all the criminal gangs that dominate the land?

What exactly will they have to stay for? If it all becomes farms who are they going to sell crack to? Cows?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

How do they plan to clear off all the criminal gangs that dominate the land?

What exactly will they have to stay for? If it all becomes farms who are they going to sell crack to? Cows?

Oh they will go somewhere. Where is the question. Unless you all want to just hand wave them off as if they don't exist.

Not least, the article states that they are withdrawing police from the area, which means they can operate with impunity. They will still continue selling crack, to the areas people have moved to.

[Zed Snardbody]

Ideally, when the city prepares to withdraw services is the same time the bulldozing will commence. So yes while the gangs may move into the consolidated city, they're moving into a consolidated city with an increased police presence that is no longer tasked with patrolling the outlying bulldozed area now.

[Skgoa]

If manufacturing micro nuke plants actually is a viable business, Detroit can just wait for a while until the local economy has improved enough to invest in this industry, instead of blowing a massive hole in their budget right now, when they could sell the land without much hassle and create jobs/tax revenue in a very short amount of time.

And if it costs just $50mil, I would like to think that the various space agencies will fund r&d and deployment of these technologies once they (the agencies) are at a point were they can make concrete plans regarding the colonization of space. ATM we should focus on other issues we have to address before we get there, though.

[Alyeska]

This article is about Detriot. Either stay on topic or I will HOS your off topic hydroponics rambling. This is your only warning Norade.

[Alyeska]

Hydroponics discussion moved to SLAM

https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic ... 5&t=146672

[Vympel]

I've been looking up videos about Detroit on youtube. Man, that stuff is scary. I saw a news report of one single solitary middle-aged woman, the only person left on her street, barricaded in her house (she has deadlocks on the doors inside her house, not just outside) - waiting for senior housing allocation so she can GTFO of an otherwise abandoned neighborhood. Fucking dystopia.

[Todeswind]

At what point do we get robocop?

[mingo]

Random question. Just who owns all those now empty houses? How many of them are still in good repair, and just how big a percentage of America's homeless population could potentially be housed if there was a political will to do so? The Urban farms are a wonderful idea, and I'd imagine there's certainly enough properties which really should be demolished at this point from disrepair anyway, but it seems a waste to get rid of homes that are actually servicable.

Ok, I live 1 1/12 miles north of Detroit and had a job that required driving through much of it. In answer to your first question, most of these house have been forfeited to the city due to long overdue taxes. as to your second question, almost NONE of these homes are "serviceable". Even homes that aren't what I would call livable, are being used in some areas. One home I visited as a home care nurse, when I asked to use the bathroom, I was sent upstairs and while doing my business, I noticed that I could see the foot of the patient's bed through the floor. I Also saw a house with NO shingles and half the roof BOARDS missing with a message spray painted on the remaining roof, "Buy this house for $100/ month", the place wasn't worth $100 total. Mayor Bing is speaking the hard truth, it's never going to be 1966 in Detroit again. Perhaps this new plan can make it into something good, time will tell.