Detroit - The Incredible Shrinking City?

Interesting article in the San Diego Union-Tribune about plans to turn portions of Detroit back into semi-rural farm land or open space. Certainly an incredible story, as this once powerful industrial city has become saddled with thousands of vacant houses and lots, and some neighborhoods that resemble ghost towns. In many ways, this is a stark illustration of the decline of the American Automobile companies.

For much of the 20th century, Detroit was an industrial powerhouse - the city that put the nation on wheels. Factory workers lived in neighborhoods of simple single- and two-story homes and walked to work. But then the plants began to close one by one. The riots of 1967 accelerated an exodus of whites to the suburbs, and many middle-class blacks followed.

Now, a city of nearly 2 million in the 1950s has declined to less than half that number. On some blocks, only one or two occupied houses remain, surrounded by trash-strewn lots and vacant, burned-out homes. Scavengers have stripped anything of value from empty buildings. According to one recent estimate, Detroit has 33,500 empty houses and 91,000 vacant residential lots.

As the article points out, there is a estimated 40 square miles of vacant and abandonded property. This area is larger than Youngstown, Ohio, another city that has begun tearing down vacant houses. What is less clear is how the city will go about relocating the residents of some of these blighted neighborhoods.