Can Urban Planning Save The City of Detroit?

http://www.nextcity.org/entry/forefornt-excerpt-can-urban-recue-detroit#disqus_thread

"Animal House" Heidelburg Project
wired.com

Hello Everyone:
We're almost at 1,000.  I can just feel it.  We can do this.  I'll keep writing and you keep reading.  Today I'd like to return to the subject of Detroit, Michigan.  The inspiration for today's post is an article published in today's New York Times, "Financial Crisis Just a Symptom of Detroit's Woes"(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/us/financial-crisis-just-a-symptom-of-detroits-woes.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th-20130709&_r=0).  In the article, Monica Davey writes about the impact of the city's financial woes on public services such as fire and police.  This leads to my question, is there a way for urban planning to save the day?  According to a July 1, 2013 post by Anna Clark in Next City, there is a solution.  The solution is through smarter urban planning.

Aging Commercial Building
time.com

Let's start with today's New York Times article.  Simply put, Detroit is broke.  Urban residents have to think twice about calling 911.  Looming in the horizon is the prospect of filing for bankruptcy, something extremely rare for cities, especially ones as populous as Detroit, to do.  Ms. Davey notes that Kevyn D. Orr, the state-appointed emergency financial manager has stated that the chances for filing bankruptcy, something that could be decided this month, are 50-50.  Not great odds.  Tomorrow, Mr. Orr is expected to lead forty representatives from the city's creditors on a bus tour through the bleak urban landscape of empty lots and shuttered firehouses in order to make the argument that the creditors should accept pennies on the dollars owned.  The spectre of bankruptcy already worries some of the city's 700,000 residents because of the additional stigma it would bring to a city that has contracted in alarming rates since the 1920s and exacerbate the already bare-minimum services.  City government seems to have disappeared.  Meanwhile, Mr. Orr has proposed for spending about $1.25 billion over the next ten years on urban improvements to the infrastructure and services.  Mr. Orr is optimistic that regardless of solution, bankruptcy or a negotiated plan, the end result will be better city services.  Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of Detroiters who share Mr. Orr's enthusiasm.  This leads us to one solution, urban planning.

Abandoned Ballroom
all-that-is-interesting.com

How can urban planning save a city that's on the brink of bankruptcy restore its former glory?  Solutions have ranged from turning Belle Isle, the city's 985-acre island park into a self-governing commonwealth where "citizenship" comes with a $300,000 price tag to just leaving the city in ruins as a warning to other cities of what can happen.  Neither sounds like a great option.  On this shaky imaginings of the future, Detroit Future City (http://www.detroitworksproject.com), launched as Detroit Works Project, has had its share of stumbles.  According to the Executive Summary on their website, the future of the city built on: business leaders who forever changed the culture of industrial production and music; pioneering new forms of transportation, infrastructure, and community food production; faith leaders who have held up the communities by addressing human and spiritual needs.  Sounds pretty lofty doesn't it?  Since the launch, rumors ran rampant that the plan would push residents out of their homes as the city "downsized" its one-hundred thirty-nine acres.  Upon careful read of the master plan, this rumor is affirmed, citing that relocating residents would be the correct thing to do.

"Last Stand"
places.designobserver.com

Naturally the backlash to this proposal was intense and expected.  Two people working in civic engagement under Toni Griffin suddenly quit the project.  The whole Detroit Works initiative was dropped like a led balloon.  Detroit Works was resurrected in 2011, when at the request of its major funder Kresge, Detroit Works split in two.  The city took over the short-term planning.  The city took over short-term planning efforts, while a group of local and national planners took up the long-term planning charge.  A new program management office was established as a separate entity in order to turn ideas into reality.  What prompted Kresge to make such a tricky project a priority?

Could this man be displaced?
places.designobserver.com

The answer, according to Wendy Jackson, senior program office with the organization's Detroit and community development team is the decision sprang from Kresge "very robust structure and groundwork in Detroit."  Ms. Jackson continues, "It was extremely important to look at [a long-term vision  for Detroit]...looking at where the city was at three years ago-it was clear that a comprehensive framework for the future was imperative."  True enough.  In order to restore a city to its former glory, you do need some sort of a framework.  So, relocation is off the table.  Instead, the framework does offer incentives for families and individuals to mover into denser neighborhoods-about 104,000 of the city's 385,390 parcels are vacant and 80,000 of the 349,170 housing units are also empty.  Sort of back door relocation.  While the demand for multi-family housing is going up, there are miles of single family residences increasingly being unused.  Unused implying no one lives there.  Even more surprising, only 88,900 residents live in high-vacancy neighborhoods, compare with the nearly 619,000 in more stable areas.  However, the high-vacancy areas comprise twenty-one percent of the urban footprint-the bleak images that have become synonymous with Detroit.

Abandoned auditorium
marchandmeffre.com

Future City, the offspring of Detroit Works, defines high-vacancy neighborhoods as places with "very high rates of both land and building vacancy...largely lost their residential character."  Most of the land has been neglected, turned into an illegal dump site and still under public ownership.  The Future Cities framework proposes developing programs,  for those who would or could relocate to these areas, that would allow them to move.  Further, the framework also proposes, for those who choose to stay, that basic levels of service be met such as security and safety.  Really?  If it currently takes nearly an hour for the paramedics to reach someone in the urban areas, how does the framework propose to remedy this?  Some of the incentives include a house swap program.  Yes off course, I can't afford to pay movers but I'll gladly swap my broom closet sized apartment in downtown Detroit for your nice house in the suburbs gratis.

"My city in ruins"
huffingtonpost.com

   The framework also recommends a tiered transportation system that would service the high-vacancy areas by providing a smaller, flexible, and on-demand fleet of shuttles instead of partially empty full-sized buses trundling down long routes several times a day.  Mass transit 101-must be reliable and affordable.  Roads with one hundred percent vacancy and not used for through-traffic would be repurposed as storm water catchments or green space.  Core city would take a "maintain only" approach to areas where the future population level remain tenuous and the infrastructure is still viable.  Detroit Future carefully notes that this strategy would be used sparingly and in respect for how residents and business will stake a claim in the land in the future.

Does this sound like a high-vacancy neighborhood divestment plan?  Not really, rather, it's a way for maintaining basic city services while focusing on upgrading populated areas.  Ms. Clark postulates that investing in high-vacancy will model an alternative urban density that measures more than demographics.  Meaning, instead of trying to fill empty homes, deconstruction could make way for urban farms and retention ponds creating more aesthetically and efficiently used land.  However, divestment is doable in the future, once the "maintain only" approach is exhausted for aging infrastructure and either upgrade or shut down are the only alternatives.  In short, the plan presents divestment but offers no method for implementation.  Implementation depends on the number of people living and working in these areas in the future tense.  For that, the "non-existent" city government must take the lead.  I'd be curious to find out what state and federal government agencies are doing about this?

Detroit Skyline
mypeoplepc.com

Within the Future City plan is an emphasis on reforming the city's blight management.  The rising cost of demolition by neglect will, hopefully, discourage neglectful private ownership.  I'm not holding my breath on that one.  In a previous post, I wrote about an absentee landlord who was using this tactic to get rid of his tenants.  This is a very difficult problem to address because of the multiple layers of bureaucracy involved. However, Detroit Future has a greater vision for the future.

So can urban planning save Detroit?  I suppose that depends on whether or not there's a real workable cohesive plan.  Also, since we're dealing with multiple government agencies with silo issues. Everyone has to be on board and find a way to mesh their agendas into a constructive workable plan.  Detroit Future's plan looks promising but much has to be worked out.  We'll see what the future holds.

http://www.pinterest.com/glamtroy