Detroit's Smaller Reality

Today, we're taking another trip to Detroit. Another look at struggling MoTown. This article I found in a comment at YoChicago talks about the impending shrinkage of Detroit. Especially in terms of population, land area, and a reduction in city services.

The mayor [Dave Bing] is looking to the diminished tally, down from 951,270 in 2000, as a benchmark in his bid to reshape Detroit's government, finances and perhaps even its geography to reflect its smaller population and tax base. That means, in part, cutting city services and laying off workers.

His approach to the census is a product of not only budget constraints but also a new, more modest view of the city's prospects. "We've got to pick those core communities, those core neighborhoods" to sustain and preserve, he said at a recent public appearance, adding: "That's something that's possible here in Detroit."

Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Bing, a Democrat first elected last year to finish the term of disgraced former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, hasn't touted big development plans or talked of a "renaissance." Instead, he is trying to prepare residents for a new reality: that Detroit—like the auto industry that propelled it for a century—will have to get smaller before it gets bigger again.
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Soon after being elected to a full term in November, Mr. Bing began cutting back on city services such as buses and laying off hundreds of municipal workers. The mayor is now making plans to shutter or consolidate city departments and tear down 10,000 vacant buildings. And Mr. Bing is supporting efforts to shrink the capacity of the city's school system by half.

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.

"The potential of this open space is enormous," said Dan Pitera, an architect at the University of Detroit Mercy who has done land-use studies on the city.
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Long-term declines triggered by suburban sprawl, home-loan bias and racial strife have accelerated in recent years as home foreclosures and auto-industry cutbacks tear through even more stable, wealthy neighborhoods. Meanwhile, declining home values in Detroit's better-off suburbs have made them more accessible to the city's poorer residents, fueling the flight.

The city is counting on nonprofit partners to take the lead on the census this year, rather than funding efforts itself. But with a population that is widely dispersed and largely poor and minority—two segments traditionally disinclined to fill out government paperwork—Detroit is already difficult to count. In the last census, just 62% of Detroiters responded, compared with an average of 71% statewide.

"That's why I keep telling the city, 'you are in trouble,' " said Kurt Metzger, director of Data Driven Detroit, an organization founded by large local philanthropies that want to help the city collect accurate demographic, housing, economic and other information. "Unfortunately, they don't have the resources."

Take a look at that graphic up top. Detroit has a larger area of vacant land than three other cities. Not sure what to say about that, other than to say that it's great to see Detroit finding ways to utilize this land as urban farms.

I'm always nervous about tearing down buildings. Especially if the buildings are viable. I can certainly understand if these buildings just were not salvageable. Perhaps some neighborhoods must be razed and others preserved.

Then again I'm not exactly an urban planner so I need to know more about whatever plans are available to revitalize Detroit in terms of adhering to its potential shrinkage.