[MarkJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hillsidedigger', 'T')here's something of Detroit in most locations in the United states.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quinny', 'B')ack to the same old stupid racist arguments.

You really bear a grudge don't you.

[buddylee]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100308/ap_ ... ng_detroit

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')perating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit and move residents into stronger neighborhoods. Roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city could go from urban to semi-rural.

Near downtown, fruit trees and vegetable farms would replace neighborhoods that are an eerie landscape of empty buildings and vacant lots. Suburban commuters heading into the city center might pass through what looks like the countryside to get there. Surviving neighborhoods in the birthplace of the auto industry would become pockets in expanses of green.

[Olaf]

Clean up will have to be well managed if the intent is to really return large portions of urban/suburban to workable farm land. They are greatly impacted too by attempting to deal with emergency services and things of that sort with a shrinking ability to pay for it. Many communities are facing this problem, just not on such a grand scale.

It doesn't strike me as an illogical approach. Seems almost to be a first step in a re-localization kind of effort to me.

[gnm]

They're just making room for all the green shoots!

-G

[Tanada]

The logical thing to do would be to redraw the city boundaries so that the populated core was all that was Detroit and let the outer area between the core and the suburbs become separate communities in their own fashion.

[IslandCrow]

While I would like to see the land returned to farming, I would have a concern about pollution.

Instead of farms, maybe the reclaimed land could first be turned to parks or wooded area (seeded with native grasses and plants that don't need a lot of watering).

Access to good parks increase house values a lot. London has done this with all its 'Royal Parks' surrounded by the super rich.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IslandCrow', 'W')hile I would like to see the land returned to farming, I would have a concern about pollution. --snip-- Access to good parks increase house values a lot. London has done this with all its 'Royal Parks' surrounded by the super rich.

[IslandCrow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', 'O')OOO Sim City...

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('buddylee', ' ')[link Interesting to say the least. Would it work?

[Ferretlover]

HHHmmm.. Clean up the city, get rid of areas that might provide housing for quatters, develop areas for farming/to grow food, provide jobs & experience for those who have been city dwellers, making changes while there's still supplies available to do so ... Sounds like someone, somewhere is trying to turn Detroit into a Transition Town or a giant Ecovillage, doesn't it? Are they building any walls around the city limits yet? Any local laws being prepared for development and control, etc., of these new aspects of Detroit life?

[mos6507]

The problem is that detroit had to "die" before starting to resemble a transition town. In detroit's case, the death involved most people who couldn't hack it leaving. In the future, the death part may be a bit more literal.

[rangerone314]

The thing that most theorists, social engineers, conservatives, liberals, socialists etc overlook is that there is a certain percentage of people that are basically worthless and are permanent damaged goods, like people who can't swim after a shipwreck that will pull other people down with them as they drown. You can't unring a bell, make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, or fix most broken people.

Now policies may exacerbate or encourage their overall numbers to increase, or make them accumulate in one area or another or shift around, but they still exist. Its like when you drive crime out of one area, it surfaces somewhere else.

Fixing an area that is overpopulated with people like that involves driving them out, but they just relocate somewhere else.

There is a solution, but not generally available to "democratic" societies.

Toxic people are unfortunate in that they didn't ask to be born into their situation. I'd say you can always point to the rare people that reform themselves, but I would say they are what in other environments might have become almost like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man

[mos6507]

Dead weight today and dead weight post peak are two different things.

In a post-peak world, the list of skills someone should possess doesn't in any way match up with anybody's current skills, and that goes for the successful and the dead-beats. That's why a big part of Transition is the "great reskilling". A willing attitude will probably mean more than a high IQ or an impressive resume post-peak.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'D')ead weight today and dead weight post peak are two different things.

In a post-peak world, the list of skills someone should possess doesn't in any way match up with anybody's current skills, and that goes for the successful and the dead-beats. That's why a big part of Transition is the "great reskilling". A willing attitude will probably mean more than a high IQ or an impressive resume post-peak.

[Revi]

I think it's a good idea. The guy who came up with the idea wanted to get a lot of real estate off the market, and to create scarcity so that land had value again. Most of the areas they are talking about were neighborhoods, so they aren't too contaminated. The industrial areas aren't attractive as real estate anyway. It is a blueprint for the future. Strategic hamlets. Time to get some farmers in there.

There's a guy doing this in Wisconsin. He has turned an urban farm into a wonderful thing.

http://www.growingpower.org/

[Ludi]

Sunflowers can be used to decontaminate soils, because they take up a lot of heavy metals and other toxins. They should then be cut and burned, and the ash either refined for the materials, or disposed of in a toxic waste dump. What I don't know if how many crops you need to grow to decontaminate fully.

Could the sunflowers be used as biofuel?

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', '
')Maybe rich landowners will bring back slavery and indentured servitude.