I have seen this topic come up countless times in regards to Detroit while surfing across the vast blogosphere as of late. Obviously with so much empty and vacant land to work with there is a ton of room for opportunity, be it urban agriculture, so called “greenways,” parks, newly developed neighborhoods or urban villages and the list could go on.
This issue of course is the downsizing, or as some refer to it, the right sizing of the city of Detroit. The need to “right size” became even more apparent after I came across a map of Detroit online (see below). Not only can the ENTIRE city of Manhattan fit into the boundaries of Detroit, but so can San Francisco and Boston too! I think we have a problem here. It truly is remarkable when put into perspective and its no wonder so many people have suggested turning Detroit into farmland; for Pete’s sake, we could feed the whole state of Michigan and then some!
Nonetheless, Detroit has once again become the land of opportunity. But this time it’s for a different reason. The amount of available space for development is simply incredible and there seems to be quite a few people, including the mayor himself, who are ready and waiting with plans for what to do with all that space.
But, just recently, it seems as though that Mayor Dave Bing has taken a step back from wanting to be associated with plans of rightsizing. The main reason seems to be caused by the outcries that have been echoing from those opposed to the relocation of families in the affected neighborhoods that are being demolished. Some opponents have even gone so far as to compare Bing’s plan to that of the Trail of Tears incident, which was the forced relocation here in the U.S. of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans into the West in the early 1800s.
That’s a little over-the-top if you ask me. I would also like to ask those opposed to the mayor’s plan to provide an alternative for what the city should do to better realign city services to the declining population. We have to start somewhere and providing citizens with safer neighborhoods and more efficient city services seems like a logical start. There are several neighborhoods in Detroit that need to be demolished, and families relocated, simply because the city currently just doesn’t have the resources or the funds to support and serve citizens in such a sparsely populated area. With 800,000 people in a 138 square-mile area in a city with a skyrocketing $400 million budget deficit the numbers simply don’t add up.
Some links worth reading:
“Cultivating the Shrinking City”
