Aside from a four game winning streak by the Lions football team to close out the regular season, Detroit resident’s have had little to cheer about over the past few years as the city is experiencing an economic and social depression.
Detroit established itself as the world’s automotive capital or “motor city” after the Ford Motor Company was founded in the early 1900’s. This economic boom catapulted the city to international acclaim, commonly referenced as the “Paris of the West” for its gilded age mansions and buildings.
However, as the domestic automobile industry took a major hit to the foreign, more fuel-efficient, automobiles during the fuel crisis of the 70’s, the city’s economy was dealt a fatal blow. What was once a spread-out, thriving metropolis has now turned into a wasteland of vacant houses with an median value of less than $6,000 where residents experience unthinkably high unemployment, crime, and homicide rates, low literacy rates, and a categorical “food desert”.
There is a silver lining to the tragic plight in Detroit; because, despite it’s problems, Detroit is becoming a canvas for revolutionary city planning and adaptation. With food scarcity being a paramount concern and open space abounding, Detroit has been primed for a second, more sustainable, boom - urban farming.
Non-Profit agencies are teaming up with community leaders, city officials, businesses, and architects for, not only delivering local food to Detroit residents today, but also to reshape what was once the “motor city” into the “food city”.
Renderings produced by the AIA’s Sustainable Design Assessment Team in their final report on a city-wide proposal include plans to consolidate the urban core to an area the size of San Francisco while transforming the remaining space - which is larger than the surface area of Manhattan and Boston combined - into urban farming villages.
“The plan is not focused on building a first-class city with a smaller population but on rebuilding the city to its former size” John Mogk, Wayne State University Law School
For more information on Detroit’s future sustainable development initiatives, visit detroitagriculture.org or check out this interesting power point from a presentation by Eric Corey Freed of organicARCHITECT.
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