Resist the land grab By Shea Howell Special to The Michigan Citizen
http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=8371&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1070&hn=michigancitizen&he=.com Forces are gathering to support the proposal by Detroit Mayor Dave Bing to close off sections of Detroit and relocate the people living there to parts unknown. The Detroit News reports that the “majority of the City Council members are on board with the concept of downsizing the city to save it and may soon move closer to choosing which neighborhoods to target for help at the expense of others.” The same article said that the plan is backed by efforts to collect data about the city driven by Living Cities, a national philanthropic collaborative of 22 of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions. The Kresge Foundation of Troy also supports the effort. Rip Rapson, its president said, that Bing “deserves enormous credit for leading the community into this.” Further, In the Detroit News editorial supporting the effort, we learned that “the Brookings Intuition, local foundations leaders, several national funding groups and the White House offered financial support of up to $100 million a year for downsizing the city.” The editorial quotes Bruce Katz, vice president of Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program saying, “There is a nothing-left-to-lose quality in Detroit, much like there was in New Orleans after Katrina.” Those of us who care about Detroit and its people need to resist these efforts by every means necessary. We need to wake up the city council being hoodwinked into supporting some of the most destructive and backward thinking to be aimed at the future of a city in a long time. First, looking at the array of forces backing this idea should be our first clue that none of these folks have the interest of the residents of this city as their motivation. They see most of us as part of the problem. Those of us who have been too stubborn to give up on neighborhoods abandoned by everyone else are now being threatened with forced removal. If any of these so-called “philanthropic organizations” were at all interested in the future of this region and were not shaped by the powers that give them money, they would at least be talking about shrinking the suburbs as well. By any ecological or rational standard, suburban living is by far the most damaging to the earth and to the psyches of those who live there. Moreover, if any of those foundations had encouraged building within the boundaries of the city, including their own offices, we might be facing a very different question today. In short, the forces that have undermined us, who have spent billions lining the pockets of suburban developers under the guise of development schemes that have failed time and again, now think they have another scheme that will improve all our lives. This scheme means removing people and seizing our most precious resource, our land. While trying to dress this naked land grab up in clinical language like “data driven,” “restoring a physical footprint” and “right sizing” these forces are completely out of touch with the reality of the city. The work of reimagining the city has been going on at the neighborhood level for decades. Neighborhood groups, small organizations and visionary individuals have created urban farms, civic theaters, homes that feed the bodies and souls of people with respect and love. Most of this work has been invisible to the power brokers and unsupported by philanthropies that see people only as victims, not as makers of our future. If Mayor Bing and the City Council are seriously interested in redeveloping our city they should stop listening to those who have benefited from its destruction and start asking people who are currently restoring life in our neighborhoods, “how can we help?” _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
