Detroit's DIY Cure for Urban Blight
The sheer scale of abandonment in Detroit is unmatched in America. A city of 1.8 million people in 1950, Detroit’s population has plummeted by almost two-thirds. A once-teeming city that defined America’s middle class aspirations has become a surreal patchwork of still-dense neighborhoods separated by nearly empty expanses of land. In 2014, the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force, appointed by President Obama, counted 40,000 blighted houses in the city and 38,000 more homes heading in that direction. They’ve wounded property values, leading to a loss of tax dollars for a city struggling to pay its bills and social deterioration that discouraged all but the bravest from moving in. The national surge of interest in urban living has reached only a few Detroit neighborhoods. Mortgages are rare in the city. Dilapidated houses in tougher neighborhoods sell—for cash—for as little as $500 or $1,000.
Duggan was elected mayor in November 2013 on a 10-point platform for rebuilding the city’s neighborhoods after the largest municipal bankruptcy ever filed in the U.S. “If we act now,” his platform read, “we still have time to save the large stretches of this city that are still filled with residents who want to stay in their homes.” He wanted to bring people back into the city, increase the tax rolls and save Detroit, which has the highest concentration of poverty of any large city in America. One of the keys to his plan was to radically enlarge the city’s tiny land bank program.
Land banks are the Swiss Army knives of urban reclamation efforts, wielding an array of powers to make abandoned, tax-foreclosed properties useful again. They demolish unwanted houses, sell houses to new owners who’ll fix them up, sell vacant lots, and assemble land for future development. They’re an alternative to unloading tax-foreclosed land in highest-bidder auctions, which often attract irresponsible speculation.
By most measures, Duggan’s plan for the land bank has worked. Almost four years later, Detroit’s land bank has grown into the largest in the country, about seven times bigger than the next largest. It now has 135 employees and owns 98,000 parcels, covering some 10 percent of the city. It has demolished more than 8,800 houses and sold 1,500 of the newly vacant lots to neighbors. It’s also sold a couple of thousand more houses to people like Clement Wright and 130 vacant lots for economic development projects. It has launched an innovative effort to sue owners who have left houses vacant and neglected.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/18/how-detroit-is-beating-its-blight-215160
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