This week I'm shifting gears a little bit and talking about a domestic case of reconstruction; Detroit. Detroit's isn't just facing declines in its population and economy but is also facing a continuing legacy of regional distrust, de facto segregation and wasteful development patterns. The result of these and other factors is that the city has been plauged with corruption and poor governance.
Detroit's current mayor took office with promises to dramatically change the way the city did business- and face up to the state of the city. At its height the city was home to 1.8 million people, and is only home to 900 thousand today. Because Detroiters (and most Michiganders) live in houses rather than large apartment buildings this means lots of empty space. Already this emptiness can be pretty astounding- and according to Mayor Bing is extremely expensive to maintain (far more than the city has resources to do).
The Detroit Parcel Survey has just released its report quantifying the state of the city, and has revealed the city's most damaged and depopulated neighborhoods.
The following maps show which parts of the city are in the worst shape:
Its obvious the current state of affairs isn't working. There are lots of ideas floating around for how to fix the city- many of which are alternatives to the traditional "rebuild everything to its orignal glory" model which appears to be an increasingly remote possibility.
"Along with the mayor, a number of academics and philanthropic groups are sketching visions of a different Detroit. One such vision has urban farms and park spaces filling the acres of barren patches where people once lived and worked. In a city of roughly 140 square miles, vacant residential and commercial property accounts for an estimated 40 square miles, an area larger than the city of Miami." WSJ
One answer being tossed around is to cut services and move people to more densly populated parts of the city. This approach- called "planned shrinkage" was used in New York City during the 1970s. Its worth taking a look at this Wikipedia article for an illustration on how they did it. Its rather ugly. In the New York case the city cut funding or did not raise funding This plays into the fears of many in the city- there is a history of demolishing neighborhoods in Detroit in the name of development, as was the case when interstate highways were built in the city.
Reasonably not everyone is convinced that this is going to go well for the people of Detroit. If Detroit were to follow through with a similar plan it would be a back-handed way of forcing people from their homes, and without compensation. They would be better off paying people to move.
Ultimately this is a matter of who gets to make the decisions. Detroit needs to leave these decisions in the hands of the communities its serving. There is a danger with mountains of external funding redevelopment policy becomes much more about making it look good for the investors. Detroit's people and its grassroots need to be at the heart of its transformation. They know best what they need for their communities. Can a master plan take into account these things? The corruption scandals of the last decade have done much to marginalize the community, and at best represent time wasted.
Who will redevelop these places, and who will benefit are the big questions. If the process of greening and repoulating the city degenerates into a land grab where agricultural companies and out- of-town landowners gentrify the rest this would not only be a crime, but would undermine some of Detroit's great strengths; such as its virbant and growing arts and non-profit communities.
I suggesst they add a criteria to these plans that would- the nature of community in these "suspect" parts of town. How well organized are people- an area might have a diminished population but also might be tight knit. It would be conterproductive to displace the people there. The data revealed by the survey will be instrumental to anyone making plans for the city- but building the future is about much more than how many people live in a place, but about what sort of community lives there.
The maps and data are from the Detroit Parcel Survey
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