Hey all,
Take a drive through the inner city here in Detroit and you’ll soon find areas that appear deserted. Whole blocks with only one or two houses. Burnt out structures and overgrown vacant lots, just blocks from thriving communities.
In the last mayoral debate both candidates seemed open to shrinking Detroit by fencing off unused portions of the city. Can you imagine what would go on in these “fenced off” areas? Who will stop the dumping and who will maintain those areas?
Now businessman John Hantz of Detroit has a proposal for some of the vast areas of decline – Urban Commercial Farming….
Is it just me or does this look like a 21st century plantation? Insert a “Big House” and put up the necessary fences (and anybody who has farmed in the city knows about crop theft) it would be hard to tell the difference.
It’s not a bad idea really, but I just don’t see the future of Detroit as the center for northern “farm hands” and when a dedicated workforce can’t be found, how long would it be before someone would figure out that cheap labor could be had from say Ryan Correctional, Wayne County Jail, Scott Correctional and others?
Put up six or seven of these ten square block farms and we’d soon become prison wonderland (why get your GED? there’s always work at the farm).
Who wants to visit a city that is surrounded by penal colony farms? As if it isn’t unsafe enough here already.
We have a void in this city in property and employment, but I don’t see the answer in creating thousands of low paying jobs. Sure, any job is a good job – but why is it that the ones who tell you that usually are being paid a lot more than you?
See ya
