Glimmers of hope in Detroit

[Crackpot]

The problem is who's gong to pay for these plans.

[dales]

You are.

eta:I believe it was Jarl who came up with the idea of turning vast amounts of this uninhabitable city into a miltary test firning range!

[Econoline]

Homesteading? Sharecropping?

P.S. I like Dale's adopt-a-building idea...

[oldr_n_wsr]

Sounds like a plan.
Adopt a building, get 10 acres (or whatever area) surrounding it to plant and reap and sell the crops. Some chickens and cows and pigs and you have a working farm. Fresh eggs to sell, milk. If I was younger I might be tempted. Farm work is too much for a "sit on your ass" old guy I am now.

[Crackpot]

And you're going to do all the cleanup if the utilities destruction/ construction of roads decontamination of soil etc. etc. to make the land suitable for farming?

[oldr_n_wsr]

Weren't we (gov) looking for shovel ready jobs? Here's their chance. Better than throwing $$ at green energy companies that go belly up days after getting the money.

[Crackpot]

What's "shovel ready" about it?

[oldr_n_wsr]

get a dozer and start tearing down and readying the soil.

[Crackpot]

So you're suggesting just randomly tearing up gas, electric, water,and sewage infrastructure on property the city may or may not own?

[Crackpot]

This is one of those situations everyone like to think the have a simple answer for but neglect to give any serious thought to the scope of the problem.

[Crackpot]

For the record there a a few "urban farms" in the city they were anything but easy to get off the ground (no pun intended)

[dales]

Let the festering sore continue, then?

[dales]

So you're suggesting just randomly tearing up gas, electric, water,and sewage infrastructure on property the city may or may not own?

Will they ever be used again?

For the record there a a few "urban farms" in the city they were anything but easy to get off the ground (no pun intended)

I bet, anything needed to be done in a forward thinking manner is an up hill battle.

This is one of those situations everyone like to think the have a simple answer for but neglect to give any serious thought to the scope of the problem.

There have been posters offering solutions, Jarl seems to have thought it thru the best.

[Crackpot]

Will they ever be used again?

Why do you think they are not being used now?

[dales]

To quote the late Gertrude Stein when discussing Oakland, CA.

"There's no "there", there.

[Crackpot]

Do you have any idea how municipal utilities work?

[dales]

Do you?

[Crackpot]

I do know that they are much more involved than most people are aware and that the positioning of said lines are much different on land for agricultural use and that for residential. Remember I've been hearing about this urban farming idea for quite a few years now and there's many reasons the Detroit isn't full of waving fields of grain right now.

Fact is people look at land as land they don't think of the underground infrastructure involved in modern living especially with water, sewage and gas. People think thier toilets are connected to a system that works entirely by magic.

[dales]

What was built by human hands can be discarded when no longer feasable.

Sewage and water lines can be sealed off, electrical/gas can be terminated.

This is not rocket science

Give the land away for free to whoever "homesteads" it and the new "homesteaders" could be hooked to municipal supplies in return for agricultural investment.

[Crackpot]

it can be but it takes money to do so and it ain't cheap. and the point you;re missing is that land is littered with a bunch of other municipal supply hookups. that have to be removed before the land is suitable for farming.