More national media discussions of Detroit's land use issues.
First, Kurt Metzger, director of
Data Driven Detroit, talked with NPR about the survey his firm conducted and how it will play into Detroit Mayor Dave Bing's plan for downsizing Detroit. There are a lot of questions and not many answers. But the good news is that these questions are now being raised from the top, not just the bottom.
Excerpt from the NPR transcript:
NORRIS: How do you compensate people who have to move? Because as I
understand it, they're entitled to 125 percent of taxable value for
their property. But their property values have plummeted; have
deteriorating along with the surrounding property, so how do you make
them whole?
Mr. METZGER: That's a great question and that's one
of those questions that I don't know that we have the answer for. I
mean, I think we just can't give money and say: Good luck. Go find a
place to live.
I think we have to come up with those housing
alternatives and work with them both to relocate them into a home
that's better - whatever that means. And I think that's something that
still has to be worked out. I think we're going to have to really work
with individuals, work with the neighborhood groups and other providers
in the area and try to really understand how best to move them, keep
them whole where they still are more or less with people that they've
been around or that they feel comfortable with.
Listen to the report
here.
And then we have this from Fast Company, examining the proposed Hantz farm and other urban farming ideas. Will farms exacerbate Detroit's problem of too much unused land, destroying hopes for rebuilding density.
Excerpt from the Fast Company story:
Together, Bing's and Hantz's plans must sound like a model city for
locavores, urban farmsteaders (although Detroit's are actually
suspicious of Hantz) and anyone concerned about the fate of sprawl in
the era of peak oil. And that might have been so, were it not for the
fact that Detroit doesn't fall away to the real prairie at 8 Mile Road.
The city of Detroit may be a shadow of its former self, but metropolitan "Detroit" and its suburbs still contain 4.4 million people, more than metropolitan Phoenix, San Francisco or Seattle. And while Detroit may be shrinking in area, "Detroit" is doing anything but.
This
fact, which is so often absent from reports about the city's plight,
fatally undermines Bing's best intentions. His plan won't make Detroit
any denser, but the opposite.
Read the full story
here.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.