From Motown to Hoetown?

[Michael]

From Motown to Hoetown

A radical plan to transform Detroit from a fast-shrinking post-industrial wasteland into the world's largest urban farm is pitting entrepreneurs against inner-city activists.

The math adds up like this – Detroit was built for 1.8 million people. Now, half that number live here. Every third house is gone or empty. The former residents are not coming back.

Instead of building yet another flashy casino, Allen is pitching a radical – and highly contentious – solution. Empty whole parts of the city, dig up the concrete, yank down the light poles, and reclaim what was here before a guy named Henry Ford moved to town: farmland.

"This is relatively fertile clay loam," says Michael Score, an agriculture adviser with Michigan State University. It's perfect, he says, for high-end horticultural crops.

Score has drafted a business plan for Hantz Farms, Allen's company. He spins around the field, describing what we'd see standing here in three years. A number of greenhouses growing cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes. Rows of strawberries and raspberry bushes, where Detroiters will pick their own quarts. Apple and cherry trees. A wetland. A field of sunflowers. A block of Christmas trees.

What about those five houses?

"If someone doesn't want to move, we'll farm around them, just like a farm in the country would," Score says.

This is not some urban planning student's master's thesis. Allen says they've already begun assembling land to become the biggest urban farm in the world, to the horror of local activists.

The Hantz plan is to convert 2,024 hectares of mostly abandoned land into 120-hectare farming "pods" across the city – each roughly the size of Canada's Wonderland.

Article (http://www.thestar.com/article/700654#at)

The article is a bit cheesy - written from a Toronto local perspective, but the idea is an interesting one.

Anyone have any thoughts on turning Detroit into the world's largest urban farm?

[Greendruid]

Article (http://www.thestar.com/article/700654#at)

The article is a bit cheesy - written from a Toronto local perspective, but the idea is an interesting one.

Anyone have any thoughts on turning Detroit into the world's largest urban farm?

Brilliant and increasingly necessary. If only the populace were culturally able and willing to embrace such a change. Knowing a few native Detroiters, I fear they are not. They are basically like Hamiltonians and unable to shift their mindsets from industry to farming like this. I hope I'm wrong though.

[dilettante]

Article (http://www.thestar.com/article/700654#at)

The article is a bit cheesy - written from a Toronto local perspective, but the idea is an interesting one.

Anyone have any thoughts on turning Detroit into the world's largest urban farm?

On the face of it sounds delightful; there's something that just seems incredibly redemptive about reclaiming a failing urban center with agriculture.

However, I can only suspect it would be a serious challenge environmentally and economically. It seems like there would need to be major changes to the water system (both in supplying water and managing agricultural run-off) if you start digging up streets and pipes to make farmland. And of course one has to do something with the city-scape once its dug up.
On the economic side, I doubt many of the local Detroit residents are trained in (or particularly eager to learn) agriculture, so a new labor force would have to move in. And, as greendruid said, I see most Detroit residents as being hesitant; they're really have to be willing to give up entirely on saving the 'old' Detroit.

But since all of those details potentially resolvable (and far away from my home in Philly), I say 'more power to them!'

[Zarquon]

Good idea; I think they should retool the closed factories and re-train the vast skilled labor force for the renewable energy industry as President Obama has been saying he wants to, while reclaiming the abandoned parts of the city, especially the outlying areas, for agriculture and parks.

[Michael]

Brilliant and increasingly necessary. If only the populace were culturally able and willing to embrace such a change. Knowing a few native Detroiters, I fear they are not. They are basically like Hamiltonians and unable to shift their mindsets from industry to farming like this. I hope I'm wrong though.

Yes, well part of the article addresses the local resistance. Comments to the article also raise this issue.

And I agree that locals are likely to oppose anything and everything (all the time, no matter what). Besides which, anyone who has any entrepreneurial spirit or leadership quality left Detroit a long time ago. The city has lost over half of its population thirty years ago and it ain't coming back.

[Donkey]

Well, there is agriculture and there is agriculture. What the article describes isn't the high-industry, destructive agriculture, so I think that would take care of a lot of concerns. It's not hard to cultivate in and around buildings, streets, etc.

I agree with Greendruid, this is brilliant. And given who is running it (people who apparently know what they are doing), I imagine they have thought about the different things that some people have voiced in this thread.

Urban agriculture has huge potential. What's sad is that a city has to be failure before people think this stuff up.

[wphelan]

If people buy up all this vacant property and can turn it in to something productive, I say go for it. I'm sure there are opportunities out there. I don't see what the issue would be.

[SMadsen]

Excellent idea. But then I have nothing invested in the place, either.

[The Drunk Girl]

Sounds like a good idea on paper, but I don't think it will be that easy. Actually, it would be better for the country as a whole to get back to its roots and learn (know) how to be self-sufficient.

This is somewhat off the topic and possibly shallow sounding to some, but if this does happen what would happen to the forms of revenue the city brings in from their major sports teams? I know there isn't much in Detroit, but what team is going to want to set up in farmland?

[Michael]

Sounds like a good idea on paper, but I don't think it will be that easy. Actually, it would be better for the country as a whole to get back to its roots and learn (know) how to be self-sufficient.

This is somewhat off the topic and possibly shallow sounding to some, but if this does happen what would happen to the forms of revenue the city brings in from their major sports teams? I know there isn't much in Detroit, but what team is going to want to set up in farmland?

No city ever earns a nickel from hosting a sports team. Rather, the question is, how much does it cost the taxpayer?

Sports facilities never pay property tax and most of them demand all kinds of other tax concessions/benefits from the host city (such as the land for their stadiums being free, etc). Any sales tax revenue from the sale of tickets or trinkets goes to the state, not the city.

So how does any city profit from hosting a team? :ummm:

(US professional sports is as far from a free market as one can get - there are all kinds of public subsidies that are required to create the present US sports market - College Football is notorious for being a multi-billion dollar private enterprise that is 100% tax exempt).

[Donkey]

Sounds like a good idea on paper, but I don't think it will be that easy. Actually, it would be better for the country as a whole to get back to its roots and learn (know) how to be self-sufficient.

This is somewhat off the topic and possibly shallow sounding to some, but if this does happen what would happen to the forms of revenue the city brings in from their major sports teams? I know there isn't much in Detroit, but what team is going to want to set up in farmland?
Guys, guys.

Urban agriculture, or agricultural reclaiming of urban land is far from "farmland."

[The Drunk Girl]

No city ever earns a nickel from hosting a sports team. Rather, the question is, how much does it cost the taxpayer?

Sports facilities never pay property tax and most of them demand all kinds of other tax concessions/benefits from the host city (such as the land for their stadiums being free, etc). Any sales tax revenue from the sale of tickets or trinkets goes to the state, not the city.

So how does any city profit from hosting a team? :ummm:

(US professional sports is as far from a free market as one can get - there are all kinds of public subsidies that are required to create the present US sports market - College Football is notorious for being a multi-billion dollar private enterprise that is 100% tax exempt).

Is there not some money that is brought in for people staying in hotels/motels?...eating in restaurants?...or even hitting up tourist attractions? Just curious

[Michael]

Is there not some money that is brought in for people staying in hotels/motels?...eating in restaurants?...or even hitting up tourist attractions? Just curious
Sure, and all that revenue goes to private interests. As for hotels/motels, that's a non-starter since 99% of sport venues draw their audience from within 50 miles.

And the 'city government' usually gets nothing anyway.

Professional sport in the USA is a classic example of socializing costs and privatizing profits (and pretending its a free market). There is zero economic development associated with pro sports. Indeed, there are arguments that suggest that sports venues may kill property values nearby (or prevent commerical developments in the neighborhood) which makes them an even bigger drain on public tax revenue.

In other words, if your town/city has economic troubles, bringing in a pro sports team is far more likely to make the problems worse than better. Hosting pro sports is a luxury government expense (albeit, a fairly popular one).

Indeed, one of the most annoying things in Canadian politics is the never-ending demands from pro sports teams DEMANDING the same tax subsidies and tax benefits that similar sports teams get in the USA. Canadian pro sports teams don't get half the tax subsidies that US pro sport teams get (and they all whine about this constantly).

Btw, US College Football and College Basketball are probably the most heavily subsidized - they are allowed to compete as private enterprises (selling tickets, merchandise and television rights) yet they have tax-exempt status as "educational institutions".

[Americano]

Sure, and all that revenue goes to private interests. As for hotels/motels, that's a non-starter since 99% of sport venues draw their audience from within 50 miles.

And the 'city government' usually gets nothing anyway.

Nothing but a new spike in LE cost (game schedules), expanded road maintenance and lower tax revenue from from the property surrounding mostly ugly stadiums.

Professional sport in the USA is a classic example of socializing costs and privatizing profits (and pretending its a free market). There is zero economic development associated with pro sports. Indeed, there are arguments that suggest that sports venues may kill property values nearby (or prevent commerical developments in the neighborhood) which makes them an even bigger drain on public tax revenue.

In other words, if your town/city has economic troubles, bringing in a pro sports team is far more likely to make the problems worse than better. Hosting pro sports is a luxury government expense (albeit, a fairly popular one).

Indeed, one of the most annoying things in Canadian politics is the never-ending demands from pro sports teams DEMANDING the same tax subsidies and tax benefits that similar sports teams get in the USA. Canadian pro sports teams don't get half the tax subsidies that US pro sport teams get (and they all whine about this constantly).

Btw, US College Football and College Basketball are probably the most heavily subsidized - they are allowed to compete as private enterprises (selling tickets, merchandise and television rights) yet they have tax-exempt status as "educational institutions".

That's how Bush43 made his big money. Daddy sent the boys in to develop a pro franchise on public land with the kid as the public image.

[Lily]

When I first read this title, I thought it might be something about certain record labels' move from R&B to rap and hip hop over the past years. Then, I wondered why it would be in the Environment forum, and wondered if someone misspelled "ho." Wouldn't be a bad title for an article on the subject, though.

[The Drunk Girl]

When I first read this title, I thought it might be something about certain record labels' move from R&B to rap and hip hop over the past years. Then, I wondered why it would be in the Environment forum, and wondered if someone misspelled "ho." Wouldn't be a bad title for an article on the subject, though.
:lol: I thought the same thing. All those genres of music have gone to pot. Such a waste.

Anyways...could I cheat on you, call you my bitch (even though I love you), and pour Cristal on your nice, tight ass? C'mon, baby you can't resist the chain 'round my neck.

[Americano]

:lol: I thought the same thing. All those genres of music have gone to pot. Such a waste.

Anyways...could I cheat on you, call you my bitch (even though I love you), and pour Cristal on your nice, tight ass? C'mon, baby you can't resist the chain 'round my neck.

If Detroit dwellers have to farm to exist those lyrics will become their religion.