A 140-Acre Forest Is About to Materialize in the Middle of Detroit

[Locutus]

A financier has purchased 1500 vacant/abandoned lots in Detroit -- 140 acres in total -- for $500,000. Which works out to just under $3,600 per acre. In a *city*.

He's planning to turn it into an urban forest: raze the buildings, clean up the garbage, and plant 15,000 hardwood trees.


A 140-Acre Forest Is About to Materialize in the Middle of Detroit - Sarah Goodyear - The Atlantic Cities

h/t sda

 

[spaminator]

the government will assassinate him.

 

[Nuggler]

:smile:............Hey !! Big enough for Winnie the Pooh.

8O............trees, birdies, SLM's squirrels, honey,

You go, 140 acre forest guy.

yay?

 

[B00Mer]

How about low income housing... ?? Forests are great, but he has to maintain them within city limits ...

 

[mentalfloss]

Guy uses money to do what he wants.

Conservatives complain.

 

[karrie]

How about low income housing... ?? Forests are great, but he has to maintain them within city limits ...

Why would you put low income housing into a city that's half empty? Detroit needs a change. Here's hoping he can bring it.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Guy uses money to do what he wants.

Conservatives complain.

Right-wingers complain. Conservatives say "that's interesting" and go on about their days.

 

[DaSleeper]

Right-wingers complain. Conservatives say "that's interesting" and go on about their days.

From the article

The huge deal drew criticism last year, when the city council – which was then still in control of Detroit – voted 5-4 to approve the sale. A coalition of grassroots urban farmers and community activists opposed it, charging that it was a play to increase land values by buying a huge swath of acreage and taking it off the market. "I think it opens the gateway for other rich folks to come here to buy up land and essentially make themselves rich compounds," urban gardener Kate Devlin told The Huffington Post at the time.

These complainers don't sound "Right Wing" to me...
Must have been a typo on your part...................

 

[petros]

Planting a hardwood forest eh? Come harvest, it'll be easy to cut and haul the trees to the mill with streets running through the trees. Probably his goal right now, harvest what's there and plant saplings.

 

[WLDB]

Good. Better than an eyesore. This way it can look good and be doing something useful. Youngstown did something similar in the 90s. Gave up on anyone coming back, destroyed the outskirts and moved everything into the centre of town. The outskirts were reclaimed by nature. More cities should do stuff like that.

 

[karrie]

Planting a hardwood forest eh? Come harvest, it'll be easy to cut and haul the trees to the mill with streets running through the trees. Probably his goal right now, harvest what's there and plant saplings.

That or turn it into fully serviced, paved road, 'one block' acreages. Can you imagine what those would go for once the trees mature a bit? Even in Detroit?

 

[petros]

That or turn it into fully serviced, paved road, 'one block' acreages. Can you imagine what those would go for once the trees mature a bit? Even in Detroit?

Makes sense. Sell to the rich crack dealers and meth cooks.

More cities should do stuff like that.

Go broke?

 

[darkbeaver]

Land is precious, if you don't have any get some.

 

[petros]

There is plenty of land right below the trees.

 

[Locutus]

Turn it into a paint ball forest. Make some moolah.

 

[petros]

Pixie wars too.

 

[#juan]

140 acres is a drop in a bucket and probably a waste of time and money. It won't change the way people in Detroit live.. Vancouver's Stanley Park is about a thousand acres, but it has been there for at least a century

 

[petros]

Stanley Park is full of methed up gays having sex and homeless people under tarps.

 

[#juan]

Stanley Park is full of methed up gays having sex and homeless people under tarps.

Funny........We took our grand kids to the aquarium last weekend and we didn't see anyone having sex., or anyone living under tarps. I think you are dreaming again. There may have been a bunch of stoned, sexually rampant, gays but we didn't see them.

 

[petros]

Funny you didn't wander past the busy aquarium?