The farming plan sounds more like the central planners are at it again. They already have driven most of the people away from the city and now they’ve come up with come cockamamie scheme to be green and have farms.

Whoever actually owns the property should decide what to do with it.

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2010/03/downsizing_detroit_mayor_dave.html

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100308/NEWS01/303080002/1322/A-shrinking-Detroit-looks-for-cuts&template=fullarticle

http://www.detnews.com/article/20100309/OPINION01/3090324/1008/opinion01/Avoid-land-grabs-while-downsizing-Detroit

seyo: You say, “People don’t choose to be poor and live in shitholes, it isn’t particularly cool or fun.” But the article says:

“I like the way things are right here,” said David Hardin, 60, whose bungalow is one of three occupied homes on a block with dozens of empty lots near what is commonly known as City Airport. He has lived there since 1976, when every home on the street was occupied, and said he enjoys the peace and quiet.

zikzak: You disparage “social darwinism” but praise “free market industry.” These seem to be two applications of the same principle, unless I’m totally misunderstanding what you mean.

http://www.resourcecenterchicago.org/70thfarm.html

To the best of my knowledge, City Farm doesn’t farm existing soil because they can’t do it safely–it’s far too contaminated. In order to start one farm that yields safe, organic vegetables requires removing the existing topsoil and laying a non-leeching clay layer that is then topped with compost. The cost of this process is a huge limitation to the amount of farms they can start across the city’s many vacant lots.

If Detroit does implement this, City Farm Chicago is sure to be a leading example. These “semi-rural” areas, though, will not come without some massive expenses.

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Thus turning a failed, crime-ridden city into a failed, crime-ridden urban sprawl? And this will all be executed by the same incompetent and corrupt people who helped ruin the city in the first place.

This idea does not make any sense at all. Assuming any sort of intervention is necessary, it’d be vastly less expensive to just rehab or rebuild the vacant buildings and arrange some sort of urban homesteading project.

As a former Detroiter I think this is probably inevitable and they should get on with it, although it’s true that Detroit has a long and sordid history of questionable eminent domain practices.

But then I guess that Detroit has more to lose than almost anyone other city right now. Just goes to show what you can do _while_you_still_have_cheap_oil_available_. Let the economy cycle down through a few more crashes (sorry, “corrections”) and we may find that the energy isn’t even available to tear down all of these wasteland suburbs.

There’s a very small chance that Detroit’s misfortune may turn out to be a lucky break …

Oddly there was a Dutch documentary made about that farm while I was there. It compared urban agriculture in two post industrial cities: Detroit and St. Petersburg, Russia. Pretty interesting. Couldn’t find anything online except this clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI1-4SdDSzg

…the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit and move residents into stronger neighborhoods.

So the people who’ve screwed up their own neighborhoods will now be moved into the “stronger” neighborhoods? This seems to offer the potential for disaster, or at least some really wacky sitcoms.

The idea of the “dying small town” has been a trope for nearly a century, but that was often in the loss of populations to the city. This is just another shift, and considering the alternatives, it’s a good one.

It’s not failure to become a smaller city. Infinite growth and expansion relies on the false premise of infinite resources. Better to make the best use of the land, beautify the city, perhaps even feed some people.

As for the contamination, I think that’s a really good point, but one that I’m sure any number of university chemists, botanists and biologist would just be chomping at the bit to investigate. Good use of human resources too.

This city is incapable of demolishing hyper-dangerous buildings, and is also incapable of restoring and preserving good ones. We even neglect one of the biggest and best public parks in the country!

I wonder if a century of urban human habitation has left trace elements of heavy metals in the soil

Our local council started a green composting scheme in the 1980s. Unfortunately the compost produced had to be treated as industrial waste due to its heavy metal content.

It will take many years and millions of dollars to clean everything up before it can be used as farm land

Contaminated land remediation is now an established industry- urban planners are well used to having to deal with this. The easiest way is just to rip out contaminated topsoil and replace with good soil- the land can be used immediately afterwards if this is done properly.