Activists: Detroit streams, once turned into sewers, could have new life

[begingri]

BY JOHN GALLAGHER

DETROIT FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER


For decades, some Detroiters have dreamed of restoring part of the natural landscape that the French found here in 1701 by opening up, or daylighting, streams that were buried more than a hundred years ago as sewers in the rapidly expanding city.

With parts of Detroit now virtually abandoned, hopes of daylighting one or more of Detroit's historic streams have a shot at becoming reality.

The Kresge Foundation recently donated $450,000 to the University of Detroit Mercy's Detroit Collaborative Design Center to map plans for the daylighting of Bloody Run Creek, the east-side stream where Chief Pontiac's braves defeated the British in 1763.

St. Louis-based developer Richard Baron, a Detroit native, is working with U-D Mercy designers to plan an ambitious 3,000-acre green environment centered on a daylighted Bloody Run. The plan remains far from implementation, but would include urban farms and alternative-energy fields.

Shaun Nethercott, founder and executive director of the environmentally minded Matrix Theatre in Detroit, said last week that daylighting Bloody Run would be one way for Detroit to reestablish a healthy connection with the natural world.

"Being in a green environment reduces anxiety, builds a sense of place, reduces all kinds of symptoms," she said. "We need to be connected to a whole life-giving environment, and this is a real way to do it."

Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/2011050.../1002/business

[hybridy]

really great concept for detroit. heard steve vogel give a lecture on this plan at udm a few years back. driving through elmwood cemetary shows just how awesome the landscape was before it was all plowed under for development. using the creek as an amenity will only improve property and cultural values. a regional example is the city of milwaukee is planning to modify the kinnickinnic river to a more natural state...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinnick...ilwaukee_River)

[detmsp]

this sounds like a fantastic idea, but what's the cost? If $450,000 is what it takes for the initial study, I imagine this will be quite expensive.

[Det_ard]

Sounds like a WPA project for our abundant prison and public assistance population.

[Detroitej72]

There has been talk of unearthing these streams for about 10 years of so, maybe this will finally get the ball rolling. I would love to see the lower east side look like the rolling hills of Elmwood Cemetery, minus the graves of coarse!

[fryar]

This continues to sound like an interesting idea.

[Bham1982]

This is a very cool idea. Would be nice if some rich foundation funded this.

[socks_mahoney]

Sounds like a WPA project for our abundant prison and public assistance population.

This is the most truthful statement I have heard on this entire forum. Hats off Det_ard.

Young men need empowering work. Nothing is more empowering than altering the landscape, moreso when it involves returning it to Mother Earth. Streams through neighborhoods will raise property values. Upward Spirals.

[Hypestyles]

there should be aggressive efforts to re-forest parts of the city, have more nature walks, streams, rivers..

[SWMAP]

Here's a good article from the New York Times on the concept of "daylighting."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/wo...light.html?hpw

[SWMAP]

And if you are new to this idea for Detroit, especially the idea of daylighting Bloody Run [[Parent's Creek), you can find the genesis of the idea as part of a broad re-conceptualizing of Detroit's east side here http://www2.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=2625 in a Metro times story of ten years ago about the Adamah Project. Very good reading. Maybe its time has come.