We’ve never had a situation quite like Detroit in modern American history: A major U.S. city — once the fourth largest in the country — losing over half of its population in a few decades, following the collapse of its principal industry. Just how bad has it gotten? Unemployment in the city has hit 27%, and houses are selling for an average of $15,000.
Then there’s the future: Even if the U.S. car market does rebound to pre-crisis levels (and there are plenty of reasons to think it won’t) it’s unlikely that the city will ever return to its former population, particularly given the incredible crime and poverty that has pervaded Detroit in recent years. In fact, experts estimate that Detroit’s population will bottom out — and possibly remain — at around 700,000 people, all in a sprawling metropolis that can hold three times that number.
So what should we do with all that empty space?
One option, according to some groups, is build farms. Fortune reports that a movement is growing to turn Detroit into an urban agriculture experiment:
[T]here’s the problem of what to do with the city’s enormous amount of abandoned land, conservatively estimated at 40 square miles in a sprawling metropolis whose 139-square-mile footprint is easily bigger than San Francisco, Boston, and Manhattan combined. If you let it revert to nature, you abandon all hope of productive use. If you turn it over to parks and recreation, you add costs to an overburdened city government that can’t afford to teach its children, police its streets, or maintain the infrastructure it already has.
Faced with those facts, a growing number of policymakers and urban planners have begun to endorse farming as a solution. Former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros, now chairman of CityView, a private equity firm that invests in urban development, is familiar with Detroit’s land problem. He says he’s in favor of “other uses that engage human beings in their maintenance, such as urban agriculture.” After studying the city’s options at the request of civic leaders, the American Institute of Architects came to this conclusion in a recent report: “Detroit is particularly well suited to become a pioneer in urban agriculture at a commercial scale.”
Farms in the middle of Detroit? The idea may not be so far fetched, according to money manager and Detroit resident John Hantz, who is developing an ambitious city-farm project:
Hantz’s operation will bear little resemblance to a traditional farm. Mike Score, who recently left Michigan State’s agricultural extension program to join Hantz Farms as president, has written a business plan that calls for the deployment of the latest in farm technology, from compost-heated greenhouses to hydroponic (water only, no soil) and aeroponic (air only) growing systems designed to maximize productivity in cramped settings.
He’s really excited about apples. Hantz Farms will use a trellised system that’s compact, highly efficient, and tourist-friendly. It won’t be like apple picking in Massachusetts, and that’s the point. Score wants visitors to Hantz Farms to see that agriculture is not just something that takes place in the countryside. They will be able to “walk down the row pushing a baby stroller,” he promises.
Crop selection will depend on the soil conditions of the plots that Hantz acquires. Experts insist that most of the land is not irretrievably toxic. The majority of the lots now vacant in Detroit were residential, not industrial; the biggest problem is how compacted the soil is. For the most part the farms will focus on high-margin edibles: peaches, berries, plums, nectarines, and exotic greens. Score says that the first crops are likely to be lettuce and heirloom tomatoes.
Of course, there’s the matter of cost: Hantz is talking about putting up $30 million of his own money to finance the project, and it’s unclear how long it would take before he could expect to turn a profit. Most of the food-growing gardens would be very small (around a quarter of an acre) meaning that mass production and distribution could be a logistical nightmare. Still, as Hantz told Fortune, “That’s the beauty of being down and out…You can actually open your mind to ideas that you would never otherwise embrace.”
Image via Flickr/Krhn313
January 13th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
A couple of considerations as we dance this topic forward –
* Should a local government seriously consider surrendering its land to lowest best use before developing and promoting a visions for highest and best use. In other words, should a city’s primary responsibility be to develop effective plans for repopulation rather than taking the easy response to its depopulation?
* Is it the right course for a city to hand over to the wealthy in the finance industry the land that was lost by those who trusted the finance industry?
* Why do the administrative and infrastuctural boundaries of the industrial city have to remain the same in a post-industrial economy? If the city is shrinking, why not shrink the city?
January 13th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
“Losing over half of its population in a few years…”
Ah, no. Detroit’s lost about half it’s population over 50 years.
January 13th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Why is this getting so much play in the media?
Two things.
First, the US has a history of abandoning cities. Boom towns and mill town are easy comparisons to Detroit in terms of growth trajectory, as are the Big-City mill towns of Buffalo, Providence, and Kenosha.
So why is it the best comparison for what people are suggesting may be Nauvoo, Il? Soon after its founding by LDS founder John Smith Nauvoo was the largest city in the state. After his assassination most of the population lit out for Utah, and the big pieces of the city reverted to farmland and the city itself is best known today for its excellent blue cheese.
Problem is, the turn over happened in the 1840s, when 80% of Americans were farmers. Also, the economy of Nauvoo didn’t create heavy metal contaminants as a byproduct.
Second, it’s only the city of Detroit that has collapsed. The population of the metro area as a whole has declined slightly, but overall is stable and in places has even expanded. So it makes sense to talk about sprawl, de-industrialization, and the nasty racial politics of the city, but why are we so fixated on what happens within the city limits of Detroit itself as an archetype of urban failure? And why do we assume this is irreversible?
Yes Detroit is a mess, as is the whole state of Michigan. But farming is the solution? What is so wrong about using the farmland outside of the city for farmland and getting people back in the city? That is sanity, and that would be sustainable, and that would take advantage of the vast urban infrastructure ALREADY IN PLACE.
January 13th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Jim,
To your first point: With an already-strapped city budget, what effective plans for repopulation could be implemented? The unemployment problem has to be solved first, and that seems unlikely, now. Detroit may be better off with a smaller population working smaller industries, such as this urban farming idea. In short, without a miracle in terms of job creation, that empty land will stay empty, regardless of what repopulation plans come out of city hall.
Second: Much of Detroit’s now-vacant land was vacated before the recent crisis caused by the financial industry; it seems to me that the vacant land and depopulation is ultimately caused by the natural rise and fall of industries, but much exacerbated by the short-sighted and greedy practices of the auto industry, especially in the last three decades. So long as the big three are not allowed to control the new uses of the vacant land, I don’t think there’s much of a “is this right?” problem.
Third: This is a great idea form an city budget standpoint, but who would take the land leftover? No one wants it. Moreover, if the city shrank its boundaries, presumably it would lose some of its already skeletal tax base. But in practice, with services like snow removal, this shrinking is already happening, just not explicitly - the city is happy to inhabit the middle ground of continuing to collect taxes without full provision of services.
These aren’t really great responses, but you have gotten me thinking. Thanks.
January 13th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
1. “Should a local government seriously consider surrendering its land [...] ?”
“Surrender” is a loaded word. Careful, there. Formerly residential and industrial areas can be reclaimed for agricultural use using _short-term leases_. After all, farmland is easy to reclaim in turn. A legal framework could be put in place to enable _effective_ urban farming, yet still provide recourse for future residential and industrial development — in other words, five- to ten-year leases, renewable at discretion of city leaders. It’s how community gardens operate on public land (at least, those formally managed by private individuals/organizations). Nothing is permanent here, and anyway, farming is such low-impact use of land compared to umpty million tons of concrete.
Repopulation is a very long-term objective for that much land. Why not encourage making use of the land in the short term? It’s not impossible to let both objectives coexist.
2. Lead in soils is a big deal. Below 50 parts per million is ideal, and up to 300 is OK with some caveats (wash veggies, etc.). My initial take is that the soil in Detroit is going to be fairly contaminated by all of the industrial pollution from the last 100, 150 years, and that most urban farming will have to remediate the soil significantly. That might involve scraping off and trucking away the first two feet and putting down “clean soil”, or long-term plant-based lead extraction, e.g. planting and harvesting/disposing of spinach crops over 10-15 years. It’s a lot of work, either way.
3. Any urban-farming initiatives on such a large scale needs buy-in from the top — federal, state and municipal — to fund (a) development of legal framework as mentioned in #1 above, (b) repair and maintenance of water/other infrastructure that delivers irrigation, and (c) mass publicity/education to encourage city residents to grow their own food and feed themselves with it.
I’d love to see neighborhood farmers markets … everywhere.
January 13th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Detroit is under-populated. Haiti is overpopulated.
Two problems with one solution.
January 13th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/us_states/michigan/Detroit.html
The above page has links to a series of historical maps of Detroit, MI. It looks like the city has been on a land grabbing campaign for over a century. This is not abnormal - Los Angeles in California has followed a similar path. But it is not impossible for cities and counties to fragment in some fashion. The county of San Mateo used to be a part of the county of San Francisco.
Detroit has encircled two small cities - Hamtramck and Highland Park - and is adjacent to the Grosse Pointe communities. It might make fiscal sense for Detroit to explore spinning off parts of itself to those communities (H, HP, GP’s).
My reaction to the idea of urban farms is mixed. Small-scale ones that are tied to schools (e.g. a high school or community college teamed up with the state’s Ag. Extension network) or community centers are fine. But a showcase farm that turns into a tourist trap smells worse than an overripe manure pile.
Detroit isn’t going to die any time soon. Location cubed provides it with a lot of leverage (port city, international gateway, etc.). The seeming negative of abandoned property may actually be a positive. Some of that vacant land could be turned into industrial corridors with buffer zones. There might even be room for transportation experiments (e.g. the freight equivalent of an LRV or electric trolley bus).
January 13th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Umm, with regards to the article, I have two words: Half Baked.
But Omri has a point. Lets bring in the millions of currently homeless Haitians, and let them live in the empty homes. As a side benefit, they would probably be a lot more productive and cost effective to employ than the insane unionized workforces in the region.
January 13th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
If want to develop urban areas of Detroit into farmland, the city could at least offer the space and resources to establish community gardens before or at least alongside commercial farming.
January 13th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
The key to the farming idea working would be the focus on high-value crops. They aren’t talking about fields of corn, but instead more valuable, more labor-intensive crops. Growing high-value crops hydroponically, I assume in greenhouses, almost reaches the level of building factories.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:11 am
Detroit isn’t abandoned. It’s partially depopulated. Even then, its population density, 2,500/km^2, is higher than this of every Sunbelt city, unless you count Los Angeles. How come nobody refers to Houston and Atlanta, each with half as many people per km^2 as Detroit, as empty? Atlanta has even had a similar economic collapse. In the last 10 years for which there is data, 1997-2007, Greater Atlanta and Greater Detroit both lost about 10% of their per capita income relative to the national average.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:12 am
“Detroit has encircled two small cities - Hamtramck and Highland Park - and is adjacent to the Grosse Pointe communities. It might make fiscal sense for Detroit to explore spinning off parts of itself to those communities (H, HP, GP’s).”
Perhaps, but Highland Park essentially is one of the absolute worst parts of the Detroit area. Spinning off undesirable areas of Detroit to equally undesirable Highland Park would solve nothing. Hamtramck and Grosse Pointe would not willingly take over any part of Detroit even if it was offered for free - they have enough problems stemming from their proximity to the city as it is.
January 14th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
I think it goes without saying that Detroit is going to be doing alot of redistricting and needs to findout how to stabilize in the meantime but like others have said, it’s just a phase that alot of big cities have gone through. It may have happened alot faster than most big cities see but the outcome will likely be the same.
For example, at $15,000 for a house I’M tempted to move there now. A downtown loft in Salt Lake City currently averages a quarter of a million dollars, I’m paid and clear on my car and have 15,000 in investment savings. Considering how little I make now it’s mind boggling that I could have a paid home and car with my current funds. Right now I’m looking at being an indebted renter for life, let alone owning a house. It’s ironic because my current job is one that can be done from home with nothing more than a phone line and an internet connection; if there is an IT company looking for a remote teleworker in Detroit I could move tomorrow. Doubly ironic because I’ve done some hydroponic farming myself and could help out with the local community hydro farm in my off time.
It will be tough on the city and they may have to shrink a bit in the future, but as long as they can provide basic services until people and new industries migrate back they have the benefit of having the lowest cost of living in the nation.
January 15th, 2010 at 9:14 am
I think urban farms/agriculture can make sense as one part of an overall strategy to deal with vacant land, abandoned properties, and declining population. I reported on this during a visit with planners in Cleveland, Ohio, over the summer. See: “Audacious … or Realistic?” at: http://www.circletheusa.com/2009/04/cleveland.html
January 15th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Detroit has empty factories and vast numbers of enemployed. Would be great to see those factories put back to work. 20 million would be better spent as start up costs for a solar panel factory than backyard heirloom tomatoes, no? Cheap rent and a willing labor force seems like a good combo for any such big manufacturing industry.
January 15th, 2010 at 11:59 am
“The key to the farming idea working would be the focus on high-value crops. They aren’t talking about fields of corn, but instead more valuable, more labor-intensive crops. Growing high-value crops hydroponically, I assume in greenhouses, almost reaches the level of building factories.”
You’re right on with the idea that growing high-value crops hydroponically almost reaches the level of building factories (in fact, it might exceed it - industry is never coming back to Detroit, or at least we can’t bet on it doing so).
The problem with growing high-value crops, especially yuppie-sounding ones like heirloom tomatoes, is that it’s no different a strategy than the casinos: pull people down 75 and the Lodge to spend their money, then let them go back. It’s yet another suburbs-dependent and suburbs-focused strategy. The people working these urban farms couldn’t afford to buy the crops they were growing.
Urban farming could help solve the nutrition problems that plague the people who are still living here. The urban area has a distinct lack of grocery stores: they are much more spread out than they are in the suburbs, yet supposedly serve a population that is much less mobile.
You’re right to suggest that we shouldn’t grow yet more corn - processed carbohydrates can be bought in the gas stations and bodegas that, tragically, serve the role of grocery stores in many areas of the city.
Instead, we should grow the fruits and vegetables that cannot be bought at gas stations but are necessary for healthy diets. Just grow tomatoes - sell them locally. Or, set aside a small (<25%) amount of them to ship 8 miles up Woodward and just call them heirloom - the yuppies* paying $4/lb won’t know the difference.
*Disclaimer: I’m one of these yuppies. I just can’t think of an equally descriptive label that is more politically correct.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
the weeds grow tall
soil is good
water is easy
another idea is on borders, plant walnut valuable wood trees
a walnut tree after 50 years is currently worth $30,000 plus
January 15th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
[...] via What Should We Do With a Semi-Abandoned U.S. City? » INFRASTRUCTURIST. [...]
January 16th, 2010 at 12:46 am
Andrew: Detroit still has much higher labor costs than competitor cities in the South. It also has a unionized tradition, which scares manufacturers. While in high value-added cities high wages and unions are compatible with growth, in a city trying to brand itself as low-cost they are not.
The problem is that transportation improvements in the second half of the 20th century made Detroit redundant. There’s no longer any need to put all the auto factories in one region, so the companies that make cars (or any other industry) look for lower-cost locations.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
/But Omri has a point. Lets bring in the millions of currently homeless Haitians, and let them live in the empty homes. As a side benefit, they would probably be a lot more productive and cost effective to employ than the insane unionized workforces in the region./
Uh, Really?
Where, pray tell, are these Haitians going to do for work, even at bargain rates, in a state with 27% unemployment? The auto industry already pulled out, union busting isn’t going to work with shops and factories that no longer exist. Who is going to pay them to be relocated, educated? How will a state and country already in a public health care crisis going to care for all these new refugees? The hypothetical non union shops that don’t exist certainly aren’t going to pay health benefits. It’s not exactly a generous idea to distribute homes that in most cases are burnt out roofless husks to the needy.
I’ve got an idea: lets build a big transporter beam, ala “Star Trek” to beam all the land and abandoned homes to Haiti. That’s a slightly more realistic solution. While we’re at it, lets melt all the plastic floating in the ocean with a giant laser to make artificial ice flows for the Polar Bears to live on.
On the other hand, “Urban Farming” is far from “Half-Baked” idea. It’s been going on for decades, if not centuries under different names, and it’s growing in sophistication, efficiency and sustainability. It’s not even new or innovative at it’s core. It used to be commonplace. In World War Two “Urban Farms” were called “Victory Gardens”, and before that, simply “Kitchen Gardens”. Michelle Obama is famously reviving the practice of maintaining one at the White House. “Urban Farming” is a proven real and practical way to provide fresh, healthy, sustainable, and affordable food in inner cities. In expensive, densely populated San Francisco there is a co-op network where people grow crops in postage stamp sized yards and trade with others who grow different crops in their postage stamp sized yards so that they can pool resources and have a greater variety of home grown, organic, practically free fresh food. “Renegade Gardening” (the practice of planting crops on abandoned or unused public land) has been around since the seventies and is exploding in popularity because of the internet. So, if ordinary urban families anarchist renegades can successfully grow food with little or no money on little or no land, why is it unrealistic for someone with millions of dollars in resources, a great deal of knowledge, and a plentiful supply of cheap fertile land to do the same thing?
While the idea of turning Detroit in to a high tech urban farming utopia may seem far fetched, The Urban Farming movement is real, gaining momentum, and is a growing sustainable solution already in place in most major cities. In fact, most of the abandoned homes in Detroit probably already had an “Urban Farm” on them at some point in their history. The better question is: “Why isn’t Detroit already growing it’s own food?”
January 17th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
[...] a chance” [Eater SF] · Petaluma, city without planning dept, is OK so far [Arch Paper] · Still fantasizing about turning Detroit into farmland [Infrastructurist] · And now, your weekend open house circuit [SF New [...]
January 17th, 2010 at 8:21 pm
The book Stalking Detroit (http://www.amazon.com/Stalking-Detroit-Georgia-Daskalakis/dp/8495273772/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263773411&sr=8-1) offers some interesting solutions to the problems that have been created in Detroit. Some of them are a bit out-of-date/not exactly feasible, but I feel they are definitely worth a look especially at a time when the situation is only worsening.
Some leaders in the field that has come to be known as Landscape Urbanism contributed to the book, including those responsible for major programs at UPenn and other schools. James Corner of the firm Field Operations (responsible for the ever popular High Line in New York City) has opinions closely aligned to those expressed in the book.
Alison Smithson, a British architect that worked with her husband Peter, wrote an essay Filling the Voids, in which she proposed that the decline of the city be counter acted by literally filling the voids created by this decay with programmatic or other pertinent solutions, whether it be gardens, or infill forms that can both utilize the space as well as offer potential employment.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:42 am
If you have cheap land and cheap labour then you shouldn’t have much of a problem turning a profit off hydroponic horticulture. Take a look at this tomato operation in Australia where the minimum wage is much higher than the USA -http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s2247329.htm
January 19th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Moving Hydroponic farming into Detroit wouldn’t be that difficult. Considering the Windsor - London stretch of the 401 in Canada is filled with those exact farms and more pop up every year.
There is a need and a want for this produce considering most of the food from these locations end up in the USA.
January 20th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Could immigrants be directed to Detroit? Immigrants have fueled New York City for centuries. Policy that says if you start a business, work and live in Detroit you will have a streamlined and faster path to US citizenship would repopulate and reinvigorate the city.
January 21st, 2010 at 12:04 am
Jeff, this policy would probably work, to some extent. Canada has something like it - it makes it easier to immigrate if you have a job offer in a city other than Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, which have virtually all of the country’s immigrant population.
And yes, Haitians may be part of the formula. First, they’re likely to create their own bit production, just like immigrants from any other country to any other city. And second, because Haiti is so poor, they’ll probably accept low wages, making Detroit more attractive as a low-cost place to do business.
January 21st, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Flooding Detroit with Haitian refuges is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Canada can handle refuges and immigrant in small urban centers because much of our society is socialised and nationalized -public health care, public education and welfare / immigration transitioning programs make a huge difference in the success of absorbing immigrant populations. Dumping thousands of barely educated Creole speaking Haitians in a city and state with crumbling infrastructure and a low tax base and thinking they will thrive is, to say the least, incredibly naive. Immigration, especially refuge immigration, is a huge public sector investment and I doubt Michigan and Detroit could absorb those costs, especially since poor Haitian refuges wouldn’t be contributing to the tax base for many years to come.
On the other hand, Transition towns and transition farming is hugely important. We will probably see oil stabilize at over $100/barrel the next 2 years. We need to transition to more localized farming and food infrastructure. The hidden costs of shipping food thousands of miles are going to become quite visible as we enter the long tail of Peak Oil. The poor urban populations of cities like Detroit are going to be especially effected. Being able to use the existing urban infrastructure and ports for high density farming is one of the most important strategies for transitioning into a post-Peak economy.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:14 pm
This idea works very well in Western Europe. An area of appr 20 sqm surrounded by industrial and residential areas across from the port of Rotterdam (the so-called “Westland”) produces about a quarter (by value) of Holland’s agricultural output. And Holland is in the top five of the world’s NET agricultural exporters. All of that in a climate with little sun, high expensive labor, etc. The secret is business models, technology and logistics. But it takes many things (think “cluster”) to make such a thing work. There are easier places in the US where the Dutch model (or the Israeli one for that matter) could be copied. And there is China..
January 24th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Let’s see, we have over 44% of the adult population unemployed in Detroit.
And we need to bring in Haitians to work???
January 25th, 2010 at 5:39 am
What hidden costs of shipping food are you talking about? The vast majority of carbon emissions from food are generated from growing it, not from shipping it. The same is true for energy costs. To ship a ton of food 1,000 miles on class I freight rail requires about 2.3 gallons of diesel. Even at $20/gallon diesel, which would require oil to go up to about $700/barrel, that’s only $46 per ton. For reference, the cheapest available food, rice, costs $1,600 per ton today; I’m pretty sure the supply chain and the consumers of a $1,600/ton product can absorb an extra $46/ton.
Localized farming is a gigantic waste of money. Do the farming elsewhere and concentrate on reducing urban energy consumption. If you want sparsely populated territory to ruralize, use the suburbs. Oakland County is barely one fifth as dense as Detroit proper. The only setback is the people you’d need to evict from Oakland County are rich enough that politicians pay attention to them. Detroit does not have this problem.
January 26th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Stampede and homestead it. Give it away. Forget about unpaid back-taxes and mortgages, those are never being paid.
Just give it away. Two conditions: If you want the land, you have to live on it and improve it for 10 years. Big box retail and chain stores are not allowed.
Make it first available just to Americans and then extend the policy to other countries after the fact.
Get people to sign up ahead of time. As the list of those interested grows, more will be attracted by the potential business opportunities. Once a tipping point of interest is reached, then make the lands available causing a stampede of interest.
This is the way America developed the West and I see no reason why it can’t be used to re-develop the midwest.
Give people something for nothing and people will come by the thousands.
February 7th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
What about DC? It lost almost half of its population over 50 years, and has only just started to recover during the past decade.
February 8th, 2010 at 12:04 am
[...] admin on Jan.14, 2010, under Ecology, Infrustructure, hydroponics Infrastructurist linked a story about how Detroit is trying to figure out what to do with the masses of abandoned space they have [...]
February 8th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Collapse of Detroit is symptomatic of the convulsive paradigm shift about to befall all America. America will have to convert from liquid energy - foreign oil, to electric energy - Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Hydro, Tidal, Wave, and Geothermal, in the next few decades as the Asians compete with a stronger Yuan for remaining scarce oil resources in the world. China has eleven nuclear reactors underway to resolve energy shortages, while America does nothing! China builds an electric bullet train network while Detroit falls into ruin. 89 pound Chinese ladies man factories, living in dorms, working 24/7, living on rice and veggies, outstripping the American worker at his unionized 8 to 5 - 5 day week, complete with McMansion in the ‘burbs and air-conditioned car! America will compete, and will convert to Electric from liquid energy by force of economic realities, in spite of the popular propaganda to the contrary. Just follow the dollar, but put on your scuba gear it is sinking to the bottom like a stone!
February 21st, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Given that the Mayor and City Council of my city, Seattle, have just declared 2010 as our Year of Urban Agriculture (http://www.seattle.gov/news/detail.asp?ID=10500&Dept=28), building on last year’s Food Action Initiative (http://www.seattle.gov/council/conlin/food_initiative.htm), and adding to the mix, a Regional Food Policy Council to develop policies for increasing access to good, local, organic food for *all* the citizens in our region (http://www.seattle.gov/urbanagriculture/), and that tomorrow this same Mayor and City Council will be announcing as one of its new priorities: laying the groundwork for a city-wide commitment to the goal of making Seattle North America’s first climate-neutral city, by 2030, I feel like I have something to add to this conversation.
First of all, I would refer all of you to Will Allen’s work in Milwaukee: (http://www.growingpower.org/ )
I just saw Will speak here in Seattle as the opening event of our Year of Urban Agriculture. He has created a model for urban agriculture that should be replicated in every city in the country, not just Detroit. And it’s a business model, whereby he is now able to get $200,000 worth of produce and fish from an acre greenhouse, which he heats only with compost piles (!) in 11* winter temperatures, where he pays all of his employees a *living* wage, not minimum wage, and where he is partnering not just with local government, but also universities and the federal government (he left Seattle to go to Washington DC to meet Michelle Obama, as part of her initiative which includes the organic garden she is growing on the lawn of the White House and addressing childhood obesity). And I should also mention that Will Allen was awarded a MacArthur Genius award in 2008 for this work, and has already put together training programs to replicate his results other places in the country.
My god, if your unemployment is 27% in Detroit, and I have absolutely no doubt that it is, we are talking about a way to employ many, many people, produce good organic food for your local population, and yes, to the person who thought food shipping was negligible: address climate change at the same time. Virtually all the food that most people eat these days is being trucked nearly 1500 miles - completely unnecessarily! The carbon footprint of that activity is a significant portion of the what the “food industry” produces overall, but is often invisible in the statistics because of the way things are tracked.
Please see the following: Climate Catastrophe: Surviving the 21st Century
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_20200.cfm
This is small excerpt:
The Hidden Greenhouse Gas Damage of Food Inc.
Although transportation, industry, and energy producers are significant polluters, few people understand that the worst U.S. greenhouse gas emitter is “Food Incorporated,” industrial food and farming. Industrial farming accounts for at least 35% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (EPA’s ridiculously low estimates range from 7% to 12%, while some climate scientists feel the figure could be as high as 50% or more). Industrial agriculture, biofuels, and cattle grazing-including whacking down the last remaining tropical rainforests in Latin America and Asia for animal feed and biofuels-are also the main driving forces in global deforestation and wetlands destruction, which generate an additional 20% of all climate destabilizing GHGs. In other words the direct and indirect impacts of industrial agriculture and the food industry are the major cause of global warming.
And then I’d like to refer all of you to Rob Hopkins’ work in The Transition Handbook. Rob is a permaculture teacher who was living in Ireland and now is in the UK. (http://transitionculture.org/ ) (btw, permaculture is a methodology of designing human settlements and agricultural systems to mimic the relationships found in natural ecosystems)
The Transition Handbook offers a permaculture perspective on addressing both climate change and peak oil in tandem. It offers a way to not only address these challenges which *are* on the horizon, but to do so in a way that cuts our energy usage, lowers our carbon footprint, relocalizes our communities, significantly incorporates urban agriculture, and builds resilience into our local communities to better withstand the impacts of climate change and peak oil.
There are now several “transition communities” across the United States. http://www.transitionus.org/welcome-transition-us
Detroit is standing at a significant threshold. You could join hands with Seattle and follow us into the future; as a member of the permaculture community here, I think I can safely say we WANT to share our skills. And in doing this, you can reclaim your community, you can put people back to work, you can feed them good, healthy, local organic food, and you CAN HAVE BETTER LIVES DOING IT than you certainly have now, or - you could just continue to pour good money after bad, implementing more of the same that you’ve already had - which clearly hasn’t and isn’t going to work - abandon your community completely to crime and poverty, and stand by and watch as your city loses any remaining sense of its own heart and soul…
You do not have to recreate the wheel to address the issues you are facing. There are now a critical mass of examples literally globally available to you. I truly hope that the people reading this will follow the links I’ve provided and see exactly what I’m talking about.
Julianne
February 26th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Just a little fact-check here - from an ex-Michigander, now retired from 15 years in the auto industry.
Detroit did NOT collapse due to the decline of the auto industry. Detroit collapsed due to a demographic shift that brought Coleman Young to power. The subsequent reign of incompetence and corruption drove anybody with a brain and a desire to bring their children up in safety to Oakland and Macomb counties, which were and are still (mostly) a vibrant example of a functioning economy and body politic, insofar as that can be said of any locale so dominated by the UAW. Any talk about “re-creating” the city of Detroit must first deal with the corruption, which has sunk to a low that would be remarkable even in a third world country. Until then, all your lovely theories about “urban agriculture” are just fairy stories. Sorry to rain on your parades, y’all, but there it is, from one who’s been there, done that, burned the T-shirt in disgust.
March 3rd, 2010 at 8:56 pm
I always thought the movie RoboCop was a great urban planning movie. What other 80s action flick was more prophetic?
March 4th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
The whole urban farming thing has become an ecstatic religious cult. Who needs parks? Who needs play areas for kids? Who needs sports? Who needs industry? Who needs TREES, even? These people are nuts.
March 6th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Merlin8 knows of what he speaks…
Detroit’s decline started before the decline of the auto industry and accelerated drastically due to race politics of the late 60’s and 70’s…
The notorious corruption in Detroit city politics of the past 50 years won’t allow for positve urban change until it changes… and it hasn’t yet
March 9th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Detroit’s decline started because of the _success_ of the auto industry. Cheap cars and development that put cars first and people second encouraged people to move to the suburbs to chase a mirage of country living. A suburban home was a status symbol, and redlining (that prevented even most wealthy African Americans from joining in the exodus) and racist attitudes that incorrectly attributed the city’s car-based decline to the blck population accelerated segregation and suburban sprawl. All the money left the urban core, and the remaining neighborhoods didn’t have the density (or resources) to spur a revival.
The decline of the auto industry just worsened an already bad situation. In retrospect, you can even view the entire rise and fall of Detroit as the cheap oil bubble in microcosm. Any attempt to reinflate that bubble is doomed to failure.
How to fix it? All the people, money, and expertise you need is right there in Michigan. Some of the expertise (and passion to put it to work) is in the city itself, lacking only money and infrastructure. What’s needed is a concerted effort to desprawl and desegregate the Detroit metropolitan area as a whole.
The federal government helped feed the bubble that built and then battered Detroit, so it should take the lead in financing the rebuilding. Encourage the existing population to concentrate in the less abandoned neighborhoods. Build transit and pedestrian-oriented infrastructure, including a train system that covers the metro area and reaches into every suburb. Then build walkable, transit-oriented neighborhoods near the train stations, and provide a mix of housing types to attract people of all income levels and backgrounds. Replace the lost auto jobs with jobs building trains for the rest of the country, and wind turbines, and solar cells. Stop state and local subsidies for driving, parking, and building in suburban areas. Ban or severely limit residential construction outside a reasonable urban growth boundary. Consider tearing down freeways in the core. Connect Detroit to other cities via high-speed rail.
But first, just care, admit the collective responsibility and systematic nature of the failure, and then work together to fix it. Rebuilding Detroit could be the project that inspires Americans to believe in the common good and transcend petty differences and misplaced prejudice.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:20 am
I wanted to thank Alon Levy for his comment upthread. People have this narrative about Detroit to the point that it has become the universal symbol of a failed city. In reality, though certainly things are bad there, its situation is parallel to that of other cities and at some point it becomes destructive and self-fulfilling to relentlessly label it as a bombed-out, completely abandoned wasteland while giving other cities “a pass” (though that is not really the right term, I guess). It is still a functioning (if not optimally) city serving numerous actual residents and numerous commuters. And yes, before anyone asks, I have “been down there lately.”
March 16th, 2010 at 6:14 am
Why doesn’t Canada Annex Detroit on a 99 year lease?
Problem solved.
March 25th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Converting the unused land to forests might be another good idea. While working out a new plan for the city a good crop of trees can be grown on the land.
April 7th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
I have a revolutionary idea. How about … if land is super-cheap in Detroit and people can’t get good produce … how about we LET THE LAND STAY CHEAP. Then people who live in Detroit can buy it - and use it - and grow their own produce? Only trouble is, no urban planners will be employed by it. Rats.
April 21st, 2010 at 2:48 am
During this transition, however, the city’s population shrank from 680,000 in 1950 to 330,000 in 2000. A major U.S. city — losing over half of its population in a few decades, following the collapse of its principal industry. Just how bad has it gotten? Umm, that’s Pittsburgh in this case, and New Orleans and many other smaller cities and towns. But yes, it did make a dramatic “never before seen” headline in this case.
June 3rd, 2010 at 6:51 pm
A few more ideas, not necessarily incompatible with each other or with the ideas above.
1. If it’s like many cities (NYC is coming readily to mind), a lot of natural water features probably got filled in or turned into underground sewers during Detroit’s growth years. Digging them back up would improve storm drainage, increase the amount of parkland and wilderness area available and possible aid remediation of some polluted areas.
2. Construct living machines in and near the still-inhabited areas to turn their sewage into nutrients for the hydroponic farms, fertilizer for organic farms and/or gray water for parkland.
3. As long as people in the suburbs work in, play in, travel through or get workers and crime from Detroit proper, pretending its problems aren’t theirs is futile. Set up trans-metropolitan agencies to fix the problems of mutual interest to all parts of the area. Where possible, build them from the ground up to minimize corrupt legacies.
July 5th, 2010 at 4:58 am
Everyone here appears to have missed the fact that Detroit recently (well, within the least year) tried to sell 1500 houses at $500 each . . . and NO ONE bought them. One realtor was even selling properties for $1.00 and no one bought them (not a misprint - one freaking dollar!) Why? Because Detroit (and Michigan) have some of the MOST DISGUSTING PROPERTY TAXES in the United States, so if you were dumb enough to have bought one of those $500 houses, you instantly got stuck with a $3000-$5000/year property tax nightmare (!!) PLUS by living in Detroit, you got stuck with an extra 2% city tax ABOVE the already insane Michigan State taxes . . . and keep in mind that people buying these low cost homes by definition can’t afford those kind of taxes. So give me a break. The insane and unfair property tax and city tax policies on a population that was really, really, really hit by the recession, that’s what CONTINUES to prevent people from buying into Detroit and it CONTINUES to drive people from the City.
And you honestly think the population is going to level out at 700,000? Oh, puh-lease. If ANY of those 700,000 people wants MORE money, just DUMP their property and walk out of Detroit. Voila! INSTANT gain of THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars by ridding yourself of unfair Detroit property taxes and YOU get to keep that additional 2% of your money the city was stealing!
So, no, 700,000 will absolutely NOT be the floor. In fact, MORE people are LEAVING the State of Michigan than ANY OTHER STATE in the Union, and it shows NO sign of stopping. Again, why? Well, jobs, sure - there aren’t any - BUT re-read the above paragraph and add this to it: Michigan is one of those few (fortunately!) loonie States where, even as your house value plummets, the property taxes are allowed to INCREASE 5% per year! So if you live in a house for 10 years, your property tax will automatically INCREASE by 50 freaking percent (!!) and this is even if your property value is DECREASING all the while!
And as for farms IN Detroit? Oh, yeah, sure. Said farmers will pay (again) 2% higher just for the privilege of farming within the confides of one of the most violent locations in the world, and if they actually own the land, then oops! There go those property taxes again! And God help them if they actually live in a house too as opposed to a tent or something - even MORE hideous property taxes! And, again, ALL of these property taxes will unfairly rise 5% per year.
Now let’s compare the vegetables they grow to ANY shipped in from OUTSIDE of Detroit (that would be their competition). The vegetables shipped in from outside do NOT have to pay those insane taxes. Guess which vegetables will be cheaper? That’s right. So ANY farming inside Detroit is DOOMED to fail, and any one can see it.
But, hey, there IS a simple solution, but the STUPID OVERPAID THUGS who run Detroit and Michigan will never do it, but here it is:
Cut taxes.
That’s right. You want to sell a $500 house? Well, no one is going to buy it if it comes with HUGE unfair property taxes (and maybe even back tax liens!), and no one from out of State is going to be dumb enough to get caught in the evil unfair Michigan property tax scam where no matter what the value of your property, it just rockets up at 5% a year no matter what! You’d have to be a complete moron to buy into Michigan under those terms - they don’t have the nerve to pull that kind of corrupt crap in California (it’s called Proposition 13 there, and you just can’t do that by law)(apparently, the people in Michigan haven’t figured this one out yet - sure, the corrupt evil and insanely overpaid politicians running Michigan and Detroit are to blame, but guess what? The people allowing those criminal pieces of s**t to pull a stunt like a permanently raising property tax are just as much to blame - the morons keep electing them, so they DESERVE to get ripped off by their evil politicians while their children starve. But how about you trying fighting back and throwing these scumbags out, you coward slaves!)
So, you want to fix Detroit? Fix these things, reset the property taxes on ALL abandoned Detroit properties to REALISTIC FAIR LEVELS and get rid of this insane yearly property tax increase (and, for that matter, get rid of your evil corrupt self-serving overpaid politicians too - there must be somebody in Michigan who isn’t a crook who can run for office, isn’t there?).
But I guarantee you, Detroit won’t do it.
They will instead BURN tax payer’s money at $100,000 per house to pay for the heavy equipment like bulldozers and union workers and big expensive gas guzzling trucks to cart away the debris, all of that, for every single house rather than CUT taxes which would at least have some people rushing to buy these low tax bargains and get at least some cash flow coming back INTO the city instead of burning TAX money on demolitions instead.
Throw on some tax breaks (maybe even ZERO property taxes for 5 years) and city provided loans to help rehabilitate these properties, and you’ll have a RUSH for these cheap properties, and the city doesn’t spend ONE PENNY bulldozing these houses and just might MAKE some money instead.
But the corrupt Detroit and Michigan politicians are just so insanely greedy and stupid that they can’t figure this out themselves, so they end up spending hundreds of millions unnecessarily when they could have turned this around and MADE hundreds of millions in new revenues instead (maybe not as much as they might like, but still it would total out to hundreds of millions POSITIVE tax flow).
So, problem solved . . . IF you can throw out those stupid f**king corrupt bastards running Detroit and Michigan and put someone with some basic economic intelligence and ETHICS in charge!
And if you won’t do it, then, hey, DROP DEAD, Detroit and Michigan! If you won’t fight these evil vermin, then you gutless wonders DESERVE what you’re getting, and look at the prices of food going up 100% every six months in the stores, and look at these unfair rising price taxes, and look at your children when they start to starve in front of you, and remember, you could have fought back, but you chose not to.
So stop complaining. The answers are obvious. Now go do something, for God’s sake.
But for everyone outside of Michigan, you’re a complete moron if you move there after reading this email. Just remember, there are plenty of states that charge virtually NO TAXES AT ALL, where NO ONE is a slave to corrupt evil uncaring overpaid government scum. So why would anyone even look at Michigan?
Everyone else, either change it or get out while you can and point and laugh at the soon-to-be-bankrupt-and-starving bootlicking slaves who remain behind.
August 14th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Hey the image of Detroit should be improving… ABC has a new series about life in Detroit coming out… It’s called DETROIT 187…
Oh yeah duh…