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A 140-Acre Forest Is About to Materialize in the Middle of Detroit
- Nux 13y agoWish every city did this.
- jlgreco 13y agoDoing this is sort of like getting a robotic limb. I mean sure, a cybernetic arm may be really cool and futuristic... but it means your real arm got chopped off. They are carving this thing out of blighted urban decay. An urban forest may be nice, but what leads up to it is not the sort of thing that you want in your city. This isn't to say that I'm not happy for them; I just don't want to find myself in the same situation.
- maxerickson 13y ago1,500 lots is more like a bit of skin off the tip of your finger.
- jlgreco 13y agoTurning 1,500 lots of urban decay in Detroit into forest is more like putting a band-aid on a gangrenous limb. 1,500 lots is only the size of the blighted land that is going to forest, a mere fraction of all the blighted land in Detroit. Edit: From the article: "There are over 200,000 abandoned parcels of land and—by debatable estimates—30,000 acres of abandoned property" (this is according to the developer). Wolfram Alpha puts the entirety of San Francisco at 29,998 acres.
- andrewflnr 13y agoYou may as well argue against having parks because one happened to have been built on similar ground. This instance might just have been recovering from a bad situation, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea in general. Granted, it would be better to set aside space for it at the planning stage.
- jlgreco 13y ago> This isn't to say that I'm not happy for them; I just don't want to find myself in the same situation I'm not arguing against this happening, I am happy they are improving their city. All I'm saying is that I hope I never find my citing in a position where we say "whelp, we have massive chunks of deserted unkempt land, lets knock down these abandoned condemned buildings and make a forest". While that action is an improvement, being in that position in the first place implies a shitty situation all around. Kind of like how somebody getting a new fancy robot arm is great, but I certainly don't want to get one myself because that would imply that I had lost my arm.
- andrewflnr 13y agoYou seem to have missed my point. Hypothetically, you don't need to be in that same situation to have a forest in your city.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- andrewflnr 13y agoThe company has committed to... mowing regwlarly I was a lot more excited before I read this. What's the point of a forest if you have to mow it? Seriously, though, sounds like a good idea.
- pmorici 13y agoI can't speak for that area specifically but I used to work at a county forest preserve during my summers in college. Typically when you are trying to restore a natural environment it takes a bit of work to make sure invasive species don't turn your forest into a bramble patch. One particularly common invasive species is Buckthorn that will choke out more desirable trees like Oaks which grow slowly. Mowing is one way that keeps the undesirable invasive species from taking over http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialplants/woody/buckthorn/index.html http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialplants/woody...
- heydenberk 13y agoLandscaping can help the area become a forest by limiting the species that thrive under full sunlight (weeds, mostly) until larger species form a canopy (trees, mostly). EDIT: pmorici explains it better than I
- jlgreco 13y ago> "planting 15,000 trees, and mowing regularly." I guess the idea behind the mowing is that you want to prevent the weeds from choking out the saplings? Otherwise "mowing" and "forest" seem kind of mutually exclusive to me.
- ngpio 13y ago15000 trees over 140 aces is approximately 1 tree per 20x20ft square. That doesn't resemble my own idea of 'forest', but it's not stretching the definition that far.
- jlgreco 13y agoThat seems roughly right for large-ish oak trees, the sort of forest I spent my childhood running around in. Of course there are hundreds of different sorts of forests.
- hablahaha 13y agoOaks are so beautiful and grow so quickly. Definitely my favorite tree. Hardwood trees will grow to have wider canopies so that plot size definitely makes sense.
- logn 13y agoWhen the trees mature, their canopy will fill that space. http://www.supersodtrees.com/trees/maple/ http://www.supersodtrees.com/trees/maple/
- jerf 13y agoIn this area, if you just let some land go that started as grassland, in the first couple of years it will be mostly weeds, then for the next several years it will become overrun by shrubs, such as [1]. At the height of this phase, the land is essentially uncrossable on foot, covered with 10-15 foot tall sharp, spiky plants that are not very hard compared to most wood, but certainly much harder than your skin. Over the next couple of decades, the trees will start getting a foothold, starting with the faster growing trees, which crowd out all the nasty shrubs but still produce a dense group of small little trees just barely spaced out enough for an adult to get through, then eventually stabilizing on oaks and the other very tall, hard trees, culminating in what one traditionally considers a "forest", something you can walk through because it's mostly very large, mature trees spaced dozens of feet apart. This will take a century or two to progress to the final stable state, depending on how tenacious the smaller trees are. But if you want to jump straight to that and avoid the middle bit, it takes some maintenance. I assume the promise is a combination of a promise to do that maintenance, and probably to maintain some trails through it. I could have sworn I learned a term in school for this sort of "biome progression" to what I thought was the "terminal biome" (the final, stable biome that results) but Google does not agree. Anyone who remembers their biology better than I, I'd be much obliged for the term. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaeagnus_angustifolia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaeagnus_angustifolia
- Apocryphon 13y agoI'm wondering that if all of the spotlight on Detroit will also lead to enough canny entrepreneurs trying to revive it for a buck, leading to a phoenix-like (or Alex Murphy-like) resurgence a few decades down the road. Will Detroit be the hot new startup city of 2045?
- stevesearer 13y agoThat's not unlike what Tony Hseih is trying to do with the Downtown Project in Las Vegas. http://downtownproject.com/ http://downtownproject.com/
- auctiontheory 13y agoFor all Tony Hsieh's good intensions, Las Vegas does not have a water supply to justify the size of that city.
- gaadd33 13y agoI've always wondered how the project is justified in environmental terms given the water situation there.
- blahedo 13y agoQuite possibly, and for a very important and underrated reason: the fights over water are already starting and are going to get bigger and nastier over the next few decades, but the cities on the shores of the largest freshwater supply in the world will be sitting pretty. Detroit may have to spend its forty years in the wilderness (rather more literally than that phrase is usually used), but there's really no question about it coming back eventually. Not with all that fresh water close at hand.
- tokenizer 13y agoWhile you make a good point about resources being finite, and people that can access those resources when said resource is scarce fair better than those who do not (especially water), you're point is actually a non point. With such speculation, I could have a premonition of an alternative future where the initial settlers near all freshwater die, as the more aggressive and desperate peoples fight for the area, and this potentiality has as much merit as yours. Also, why even say Detroit will come back if the original inhabitants are all but gone, and the area has been resettled by others? If Detroit's coming back in 2045, then [insert any maritime city/town/village/location/space] is too!
- pg 13y agoIf someone could post a link to a Google Maps view of the area, that would be interesting to see.
- evmar 13y agoThis article has a map: http://www.freep.com/article/20131018/BUSINESS06/310180105 http://www.freep.com/article/20131018/BUSINESS06/310180105 I grabbed that address and plugged it into Google Maps, so the pin here is the northern corner: https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=Mack+%26+St.+Jean%2C+Detroit%2C+MI&data=!1m4!1m3!1d16228!2d-82.980734!3d42.3695785!2m1!1e3!4m15!2m14!1m13!1s0x8824d46395a86267%3A0x1855ad08de3d9a8a!3m8!1m3!1d18983!2d-122.3926051!3d37.7913156!3m2!1i1215!2i1156!4f13.1!4m2!3d42.3791293!4d-82.97854&fid=7 https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=Mack+%26+St.+Jean%2C+... Edit: and according to Google Maps, "Indian Village" (home of the developer) is literally the southwestern edge of the area. PS: I know nothing about Detroit, this is all just looking at a map.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoOk, I had the weird experience of looking at the street view map, wanting to move forward and just, out of habit, used the WASD keys and damn if they didn't work just like they "should". Reminded me of the first time I used vi(1) and wanted to move the cursor and went with the rogue(7) keys and that just worked. Games as usability training tools for the win I guess.
- GeneralMayhem 13y agoVi and Rogue were both influenced by the hardware of the old ADM terminals, which had the arrows printed on HJKL.
- zenocon 13y agoThat map is not quite right. I live not far from there.
- logn 13y ago
- keiferski 13y agohttp://www.hantzfarmsdetroit.com/ http://www.hantzfarmsdetroit.com/
- philipn 13y agoThere's some more info on the Detroit LocalWiki here - http://detroitwiki.org/Hantz_Farms http://detroitwiki.org/Hantz_Farms. When I asked my friend about it, he responded with "long story."
- fjk 13y agoThis isn't a forest. It's a for-profit business that happens to be a farm in the middle of a major city. That said, I'm really excited about this. The project is removing blight and contributing much needed tax dollars to the city.
- snogglethorpe 13y agoIs "for-profit" incompatible with "forest"? It certainly doesn't seem to be....
- ChuckMcM 13y agoOf course not, you need only drive around the managed forests in Oregon to see some. (and it really tweeks your brain to see a forest where all the trees are exactly the same age for the most part!)
- snogglethorpe 13y agoI've seen a lot of tree farms in Scotland and they were quite insane, literally impossible to walk through in some cases because the trees were so closely spaced, with no other vegetation at all (how they manage to get enough light to live I have no idea). Very, very, unpleasant places. I wasn't sure if that sort thing counts as a forest though, or whether there was some implication of a more varied natural ecosystem. [That's an extreme example and there are better sorts of managed woodlands of course, e.g. Japan is famous for them.]
- arethuza 13y agoWe only have a tiny amount amount of "old growth" forests in Scotland - about 1% of land area with a total of almost 18% being forested, the difference being the "tree farms" (not what they are called here, but that's really what they are). http://www.snh.gov.uk/land-and-sea/managing-the-land/forestry-and-woodlands/history/ http://www.snh.gov.uk/land-and-sea/managing-the-land/forestr... There are groups trying to restore the ancient Caledonian Forest: http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/ http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Forest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Forest There are also attempts to restore wildlife as well - the White Tailed Sea Eagle has been re-introduced as well as beavers in one location. Some people even want to have wolves and lynxes brought back...
- ChuckMcM 13y agoPersonally I think this is an excellent idea. If nothing else growing hardwords on unused land at least puts it to use. The fact that they are going to leave all of the streets in place means it is going to become quite strange to drive around in. When I was growing up in Vegas, before it covered the valley, aggressive developers had gone out and put in streets where "new developments" would someday be, and driving around had that weird feeling of sort of a maze race track. Hansel and Gretel probably will feel right at home :-).
- mooreds 13y agoI wonder who will be responsible for maintaining the streets? My guess is that will still fall on the city of Detroit (because the farm is paying taxes).
- skylan_q 13y agoAnd they might have to abandon some streets and only keep up the ones necessary to get around from property to property. We might even see some gravel roads in some places. :/
- toomuchtodo 13y agoThey could always let them go back to gravel roads; much cheaper to maintain, and if they're just for traversing through the hardwoods "forest", your top speed should be no more than ~20 mph.
- minimax 13y agoYour comments on Las Vegas reminded me of a recent set of photos in Wired: http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2013/09/michael-light-aerial-photos/ http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2013/09/michael-light-aerial-ph...
- wuliwong 13y agoIt's amazing how many people are hung up on the "mowing" part of this. First, who cares? It's such a minor point. Second, this land is surrounded by neighborhoods with sidewalks (and even has homes interspersed between land parcels). Certainly, they should maintain the landscape near the sidewalks and adjacent lots that they don't own. It seems reasonable that the maintenance would include mowing. And maybe there's even more "mowing" than that but this obvious explanation is enough to justify their "mowing" comment.
- Alex3917 13y agoFor comparison, NYC currently has about 30,000 acres of public parks, and a several thousand acres of privately owned open space on top of that. The amount of parkland in NYC is greater than the total amount of land in most cities, period.
- beloch 13y agoI hope the city has budgeted for adequate police coverage. Otherwise, they're building New Sherwood forest!
- malandrew 13y agoI would really love it if they took this a step further. Instead of buying a big block that can become a massive park like Central Park in NYC or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. It would be more interesting if they created a "graph" of park nodes linked by park edges so that there isn't a separation between the two. For an example of what such a project could look like check out this proposal for the city of São Paulo called Ecos na Paisagem: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12588351@N02/sets/72157623192662899/show http://www.flickr.com/photos/12588351@N02/sets/7215762319266... Additionally, Park Avenue was on e an example of this when it used to be a park that stretched from Central Park to Battery Park: http://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/2011/05/27/old-new-york-in-photos-4/ http://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/2011/05/27/old-new-york-in-...
- justincormack 13y agoPark Avenue is interesting but I would like to see a picture not one saying "this is not it".
- malandrew 13y agoIt's remarkably hard to find images of what it used to look like. I've seen some before. Here's what one section looked like in the 1870s when the railroad run underneath it: http://www.iridetheharlemline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/f1.jpg http://www.iridetheharlemline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05... Here's park avenue in the 1920s: http://screencast.com/t/7GRMhOzq http://screencast.com/t/7GRMhOzq Park Avenue (used to be 4th Avenue) has probably changed more than most Avenues in NYC. Here are some images of when railroads ran down it. http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/three-views-of-park-avenue-in-the-east-50s/ http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/three-views... You may also enjoy seeing these photos of the NYC mansions from back in the day: http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2012/02/09/looking_back_at_manhattans_lost_gilded_age_mansions.php http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2012/02/09/looking_back_at_man...
- zenocon 13y agoI live not far from here, and drive by it every day. The rapid pace of change in the city limits is unprecedented...in the last 3 years, perhaps. This city is rebuilding itself quickly after lying stagnant since the 1960s.
- logn 13y agoDetroit should also invest in city parks of this size. For instance, the city of Cincinnati has benefited greatly from an abundance of large parks: http://www.cincinnatiparks.com/history-master-plan http://www.cincinnatiparks.com/history-master-plan One well-known park came about after the purchase of a vineyard from Nicholas Longworth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Park_%28Cincinnati%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Park_%28Cincinnati%29
- arbuge 13y agoAnd this is how cities return to the land. Or at least, it's one way.