Argriculture & Anarchy, the Route to Detroit's Revival?

**Lowell** · November-11-09, 11:37 AM

The web works in mysterious ways. Whenever I notice a spike in new sign-ups, I drill down into the site's Google analytics for the reason. Today's comes via NewGeography.com via The Urbanophile blog via a NY Times mention.

"Detroit may be best positioned to become the worldâ€™s first one hundred percent food self-sufficient city."

I am continually amazed of how this Romantic-style vision of Detroit transforming into an agro-urban entity fires imaginations.

That was one of many interesting lines in this article from NewGeography.com via Aaron Renn's Urbanophile blog. Here is another.

"...the absolutely crucial advantage of Detroit. Itâ€™s possible to do things there. In Detroit, the incapacity of the government is actually an advantage in many cases. Thereâ€™s not much chance a strong city government could really turn the place around, but it could stop the grass roots revival in its tracks." and...

"In most cities, municipal government canâ€™t stop drug dealing and violence, but it can keep people with creative ideas out. Not in Detroit. In Detroit, if you want to do something, you just go do it. Maybe someone will eventually get around to shutting you down, or maybe not. Itâ€™s a sort of anarchy in a good way as well as a bad one."

Well it worked for Detroit techno, its peripheral rave culture, parties at the Packard. the Eastown and elsewhere. But the 'feckless' government did catch up with it.

**detroitcorky** · November-11-09, 11:52 AM

And a good deal of this progress/anarchy/agriculture is centered in Corktown
http://www.spiritofhopedetroit.org/farm.html
http://www.detroitevolution.com/
http://www.greeningofdetroit.com/

**skyl4rk** · November-11-09, 11:57 AM

Reduced enforcement of victimless crimes could be a part of renewal of the city. However, code enforcement and property maintenance code activities are a necessary part of urban redevelopment and needed for fighting against urban decay.

As a survivor of the infamous "The Furnace" benefit party at the Bohemian Hall, I think that the vision of Detroit as a laissez faire place of individual freedom is just romanticism.

**English** · November-11-09, 12:24 PM

"In Detroit, if you want to do something, you just go do it."

As someone who started a nonprofit when I was just 16 years old with a bunch of teenaged friends from around the city -- yes.

The problem with the notion of a sustainable Detroit is that the majority of the residents haven't yet gotten around to circa early 21st century, SWPL rejection of the accumulation of stuff, sustainable living, "return to the land" buying local and organic food, etc. My friends in Detroit [[and me, up the road in grad school!) want to participate in the postwar capitalist dream of the 20th century before getting to 21st century austerity. This goes beyond race or class. It's two very different worldviews that are diametrically opposed.

**Lowell** · November-11-09, 12:32 PM

I was at the Furnace benefit too when it was raided - doing a projection in second floor auditorium. Not sure what you mean by being a 'survivor' for while the raid was a buzz kill, the gang squad ninja's did not shut the event down. When they arrived at the second floor auditorium, they were puzzled by the presence of a number of people my age [advancing years] watched the projection for a while and then left. Fortunately they stopped there and didn't continue down to the bar space where they would have probably found MIP's and probably no party license. Since the only route through there was up - through the auditorium and then down and through a winding path it didn't happen.

That and the much more egregious CAID raid are the exceptions to the rule.

There is an equation of freedom and danger. Generally the more dangerous a setting the more laxity there is on lesser infractions. Pot enforcement is an example. I know a number of cops and defense lawyers who all say there is no enforcement of that in the CofD unless you blow it a cop's face or mess with them in some way that they decide to use it on you for being a smart ass.

**detourdetroit** · November-11-09, 12:47 PM

maybe what's unique about the potential of detroit is that there can be a hybrid of those two world views. i don't necessarily see them as incompatible.

a couple of random thoughts:

i've been told that when detroit was at its industrial height during the war it ALSO grew something like 60-80% of its own produce because people grew stuff in their yards.

one of my worries with the farm movement in detroit is not that it's a bad thing [[it's not, it's wonderful), but that people see it as the ONLY thing. for as many people as the greening and planting of the city can feed, farming is not an ecomically sustainable practice in terms of how many people can actually earn a living off the land. the answer is NOT 900,000...i'd be surprised if that figure was any more than 9,000.

so where does that leave us? well, speaking from personal experience, i think we'd be more able to marry the two notions english alludes to if we could get to a place where the "micro" and "local" aspects of our economy were operating on a much more pervasive and significant level. where we could diminish the debt and burden of the capitalistic national [[and global) economic hegemony and grow a locally scaled economy that is more self sufficient and less reliant on the corporate masters.

what the digital age affords is a truly place based economy that, if made attractive, would gestate the local banks, bakers, musicians, makers, web mavens, and tradespeople in equal measure...

**iheartthed** · November-11-09, 12:48 PM

Not really following the logical line of thought. Yes, Detroit is a bit of an anything goes town, but you can also do whatever the hell you want in MiddleOfNowhere, Iowa. Go there, set up an anarchist colony and have at it. The premise that the unstructured way that Detroit operates is somehow a plus for making a new viable city... Is a very troubled premise. Anarchy is antithetical to a city. If you want to eat raccoons and grow corn then move to Iowa.

**skyl4rk** · November-11-09, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Lowell

I was at the Furnace benefit too when it was raided - doing a projection in second floor auditorium. Not sure what you mean by being a 'survivor' for while the raid was a buzz kill, the gang squad ninja's did not shut the event down. When they arrived at the second floor auditorium, they were puzzled by the presence of a number of people my age [advancing years] watched the projection for a while and then left.

Heheh, I was also one of the gray-haired people watching the slide show, not one of the basement people. It was interesting to see the cops calm down a bit after seeing the slide show and the people there. I was in line for the bathroom when the SWAT team pushed their way in past the person at the door and had a dozen machine guns pointed at me. I was ordered to get my hands out of my pockets. I could kind of overhear the crew chief calling his boss and try to get some directions on what to do about a bunch of old people drinking wine and look at a slide show. I told them I was not giving up my place in line for the bathroom!

Definitely a memorable night.

**Maple Leaf Rag** · November-11-09, 12:59 PM

As long as Mr. Lahey and Randy are running the trailer park, Ricky Julian and Bubbles will seemingly have a blank canvas with which to work. If only it were so easy.

**vetalalumni** · November-11-09, 02:02 PM

Originally Posted by English

"In Detroit, if you want to do something, you just go do it."

As someone who started a nonprofit when I was just 16 years old with a bunch of teenaged friends from around the city -- yes.

The problem with the notion of a sustainable Detroit is that the majority of the residents haven't yet gotten around to circa early 21st century, SWPL rejection of the accumulation of stuff, sustainable living, "return to the land" buying local and organic food, etc. My friends in Detroit [[and me, up the road in grad school!) want to participate in the postwar capitalist dream of the 20th century before getting to 21st century austerity. This goes beyond race or class. It's two very different worldviews that are diametrically opposed.

Interesting English. Is the question how natural progression may occur with full participation?

**Lloyd** · November-11-09, 02:11 PM

Seems to me that I remember <a few years back> an Eastside city commissioner suggesting that corn be planted on all the vacant lots... when the laughter died down he clarified "nothing attracts developers like corn fields."

How Anarchy will fit with that I don't know. I also don't know if even corn fields will help the situation but, at least, fewer people will go hungry.

**ordinary** · November-11-09, 02:13 PM

English, what does SWPL stand for?

**urbanophile** · November-11-09, 02:16 PM

Lowell, you are the owner of this site? When writing that article I searched all over it looking for a contact email to ask permission to use the St. Cyril photos. I couldn't find any, so I just used them and made sure to give a link back and shout out. This site is great and I'm glad the piece is driving traffic your way.

**English** · November-11-09, 05:34 PM

Originally Posted by ordinary

English, what does SWPL stand for?

Christian Lander's satirical blog, Stuff White People Like:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/full...e-people-like/

The best entries were the first, when no one knew who Lander was and everyone up here got the link to this blog via email. He describes 90% of Ann Arbor to a T. Indeed, whenever people tell me that Tree Town is weird, I refer them to that blog.

SWPL is NOT ABOUT RACE. It's a satirical comment about culture and politics. Lander's hilarious for studying the culture of the people who objectify, classify, categorize, and analyze everybody else. I'm a Black girl with SWPL tastes that have become more swipply the closer I get to earning a Wolverine doctorate. So are many POC. And there are a lot of white people who HATE the stuff on Lander's list. He classifies them as TWKOWP -- "the wrong kind of white people".

In netspeak, SWPL is a stand-in for the progressive cultural zeitgeist of the early 21st century. Strangely enough, what SWPLs mark as de rigueur ends up becoming what many of us left-leaning folks think that the rest of society ought to do, prefer, and become.

That is why I love my Detroit friends... whenever I get too SWPL, they bring me back down to earth.

**English** · November-11-09, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by detourdetroit

maybe what's unique about the potential of detroit is that there can be a hybrid of those two world views. i don't necessarily see them as incompatible.

a couple of random thoughts:

i've been told that when detroit was at its industrial height during the war it ALSO grew something like 60-80% of its own produce because people grew stuff in their yards.

one of my worries with the farm movement in detroit is not that it's a bad thing [[it's not, it's wonderful), but that people see it as the ONLY thing. for as many people as the greening and planting of the city can feed, farming is not an ecomically sustainable practice in terms of how many people can actually earn a living off the land. the answer is NOT 900,000...i'd be surprised if that figure was any more than 9,000.

so where does that leave us? well, speaking from personal experience, i think we'd be more able to marry the two notions english alludes to if we could get to a place where the "micro" and "local" aspects of our economy were operating on a much more pervasive and significant level. where we could diminish the debt and burden of the capitalistic national [[and global) economic hegemony and grow a locally scaled economy that is more self sufficient and less reliant on the corporate masters.

what the digital age affords is a truly place based economy that, if made attractive, would gestate the local banks, bakers, musicians, makers, web mavens, and tradespeople in equal measure...

Totally agreed w/ you, detourdetroit. That is the best thing about the global economy. Knowledge workers can choose where they live. I'm really hoping to move back home next year, where I'll be able to do what I am doing currently to earn a living, yet be on the vanguard of folks selling sustainability to your average Detroiter... AND learning from them.

At a workshop in Oakland County this summer, a bunch of youngsters in my field were very excited about their volunteer work in Detroit gardens, yet lamented that not a lot of Black folks were out there. [[It's been a few years since I've been connected to those groups, so not sure how true that is or not.) I told them about my grandmother and her friends, who transformed several parcels our near West Side block into a beautiful flower and veggie garden for nearly 20 years. They seemed amazed, as if they'd never heard of such a thing. I told them about my former Bates art teacher, Asenath Andrews. And I said, "You know, most Black Detroiters are only two generations away from the South. That means you've got both a treasure of knowledge about gardening among the old folks, and yet some age-old fears about what teaching our kids to be traditionally low-status agricultural workers would mean."

In all things Detroit, we're not just dealing with practical contingencies. We're also dealing with a lot of history. When I wept over reading a feature story about the Greening of Detroit because I could just *see* what it could look like by midcentury in my mind, one of my DPS coworkers was disgusted at my tears [[what kind of woman raised in the city crie over something like that?), and got pissed off at my suggestion that we offer classes in agriculture at our schools, giving the kids a healthy respect for the earth -- "White folks teaching Black kids how to be sharecroppers!". Even adding more POC to certain progressive urban movements wouldn't work.

Find a way to overcome the negative association many in Detroit have with many urban progressive movements [[e.g., sustainability, urban agriculture, preservation, etc.) and we'll be able to be the comeback story of the century.

**devman1983** · November-12-09, 12:26 PM

Is it possible to get my residential property in Detroit rezoned to agriculture? What kind of taxes am I looking at? Anyone have any ideas?

We need lowwwww taxes in Detroit.

It's a joke looking at $5000 houses and having to pay $3200 a year in taxes.

**ordinary** · November-12-09, 05:08 PM

English, thanks for the explanation. I clicked on the link and read the one about camping. That was pretty accurate and funny.

About the gardening aspect of Detroit, I always think of the guy who kind of started the Georgia Street Garden thing. It seems as though he just started doing stuff and it took off. Don't worry about rules and regulations. Just start. Maybe that's a kinder gentler anarchy.

**English** · November-12-09, 06:10 PM

^Ordinary, you're welcome. I agree that people ought to just start... yet I worry that if it takes off, the city government will do something to destroy it.

[[See: Tyree Guyton.)

**mwilbert** · November-12-09, 07:01 PM

farming is not an ecomically sustainable practice in terms of how many people can actually earn a living off the land. the answer is NOT 900,000...i'd be surprised if that figure was any more than 9,000

.

I would say that is a reasonable, optimistic estimate.

If we assume we could use 20% of the city's land area for farming,
that would be 17,280 acres. An efficient market garden type farm could make maybe $10000-$15000/acre, but that would be a pretty well-run place with good markets. Let's cut that down to a $3000/acre average. That would be total income of about $50 million, and that would support somewhere around 1000-2000 people, but in Michigan a lot of the work would be seasonal.
Maybe $3000 is too low an estimate, but your estimate of 9000 seems right around the highest believable level.

Of course, I wouldn't sneeze at 9000 [[or 1000) jobs that made good food more widely available.

**English** · November-12-09, 07:32 PM

Hmm... what about other agribusiness? [[i.e., food processing, etc.)

**sumas** · November-13-09, 06:57 AM

Why not medicinal pot?

**mwilbert** · November-13-09, 06:22 PM

I read that in Michigan you can only grow up to 12 plants for up to 5 patients, so that doesn't seem likely to be a living, although I suppose it is a possible add-on business. It might be best to hide it among other produce, as it seems to me there might be some problem safeguarding the product if it were obvious.