MSU proposes urban agriculture project in Detroit

[Detroitnerd]

75% is not a hard number for me. And the mental gymnastics are understandable. It's counterintuitive to look a wealthy person and directly understand how a poor person is benefiting. I get that.

The well-to-do don't need aid, and I'm not advocating for that. But they do need to be attracted. Or, at the very minimum, they need to be *not punished* for deciding to come to Detroit.

I don't see how you accomplish that without offering some form of aid. Aiding the professional class, as the payments to professionals to live in Midtown, are difficult to justify when there are malnourished kids in other parts of the city.

Rightsizing is not an intention to kick poor people out. It's to find better ways to use the money that we do have.

There has to be a better way than Detroit Works. I note with suspicion that the plan will reward the usual powerful players -- DTE, land speculators, professionals -- while the "benefits" for the poor will be that they get to move. The whole plan will likely be prohibitively expensive and involve forcing people to move. [[Apparently, legal documents such as deeds will have to come into question.) Can't understand how we see our actual residents as "drains" when they're the ones who tough it out in depopulated areas, often cutting grass, unclogging sewers, using their own porchlights in lieu of streetlights, etc. No, they're a drain and must be dealt with.

Meanwhile, the region's priorities are just as topsy-turvy as ever. Building huge roads out in places where we have housing styles in oversupply. Lavishing subsidies on places in the exurbs that are unfinished, and likely will never fill in. To say nothing of the expenses attendant on 100-odd redundant municipal governments, each with their own police forces, fire departments, school districts, etc. No, in one of the richest regions in the country, we have to sock it to the city, which, in the long run, has the best chance at fueling the local economy through redevelopment if we could have a functioning regional planning system that drove proper investment.

Then there are so many other issues. What if we weren't fighting several expensive wars right now? That might free up a few trillion dollars for our cities. What if we repealed the War on Drugs? What if we instituted national single-payer health care? What if we had an actual urban policy in this country that involved funding infrastructure? None of that is up for debate, of course. Instead, it's just those darn poor people in the way with their insatiable desire for police, fire and lighting.

As usual, I overstate things. But, you see, there are other medicines. It's just that the powers that be are pushing one that is politically positioned from their standpoint. It is the most vulnerable whose oxes will be gored by Detroit Works. And everybody else stands to gain.

The medicine may be worse than the disease in the short term...just as alcohol burns when you pour it on a cut. But sometimes you need to go through the hard part before you get the benefit. If this isn't one of those times, I don't know what is. Or at least I want to be shown an alternative to what we're doing now.

Well, that boils down to the old "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs" sort of thing.

But, as Sinclair Lewis pointed out in "It Can't Happen Here": "If I ever hear that 'can't make an omelet' phrase again, I'll start doing a little murder myself! It's used to justify every atrocity under every despotism, Fascist or Nazi or Communist or American labor war. Omelet! Eggs! By God, sir, men's souls and blood are not eggshells for tyrants to break!"

Anyway, I have no problem with the occasional streetlight being out. So far, I have no complaints about city services. My garbage gets picked up every week. I knew I was moving to Detroit and not, say, Dearborn under Hubbard. I am familiar with the disease, and very wary of that alcohol swab. Especially when it's people from outstate, who have no love for minorities or appreciation of cities, loading up the needle.