Unreal Estate

In Detroit, you can buy a house for under $900. Nine hundred dollars.

The glut of cheap housing is due, most directly, to the bottom dropping out on the city’s population, and the subsequent foreclosure and abandonment of formerly lived-in homes. Properties that even banks don’t want anything to do with fall apart, slip into decay, conglomerate into blighted tracts — and so goes the bad news in the Motor City. What happens to all that land is a question Detroit will have to answer on the road to rebirth. Growing a local food system is one good answer, walkable green space is another — but probably the most important question concerns people rather than nature.  People need homes. How can the homes that are left be the infrastructure for strong, vibrant local communities?

One of the more interesting answers is the Heidelberg Project, a community art installation that spans 2 city blocks and uses discarded materials to ask social questions, inspire kids, hold a conversation about the city’s future, and do something with previously abandoned space. Check out the short video on Heidelberg, below.

Another project is attempting to turn a dirt-cheap house into a model of sustainable design. Called The Power House, the property’s original two buyers bought the house and two surrounding lots for $4,900 in the spring of 2008. With the electrical system ripped out and plumbing and heating appliances stolen, the buyers figured they’d go off grid instead: they plan to retrofit the place with solar panels and miles of insulation, and kick off a neighborhood-wide project in the process.

Also in the street art/model home vein, Detroit Lives! is spraying murals, creating a guerilla art installation from the ruins of the Michigan Central Depot, and spreading buzz about a new Detroit via an original film. Public Art Workz is using art, found objects and vacant public space to reinvent the Old Redford and Northwest Detroit neighborhoods. They’re educating and empowering their community’s youth to do something about their neighborhoods — literally coloring in the gray concrete of  blighted abandonment with art that inspires care for place, a sense of possiblity, and the start of a vibrant community culture.  And Detroit Unreal Estate Agency, a group of Dutch architects, are there to document the whole thing with the goal of highlighting the “new types of urban practices (architecturally, artistically, institutionally, everyday life, etc) that came into existence, creating a new value system in Detroit.”

Along more traditional lines, the Detroit Vacant Property Campaign serves as the partnership headwaters for neighborhood associations, faith-based organizations, Michigan universities and the City of Detroit in revitalizing its neighborhoods. And the Community Development Advocates of Detroit makes a cohesive network out of the city’s many community development advocates like the Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corporation and Detroit Summer.

All this is very interesting — and a step forward — but rebuilding the physical landscape has to be about more than art. Alongside food and economic development, it’s huge. And, eventually, the question might arise: will cheap houses become primarily a story of first-wave artists and slowly gentrifying neighborhoods? Or will it be about the comeback of a city that supports its residents — a rooted, post-growth city?

UPDATE 10/25/09:

One more note: If you’re talking neighborhood revitalization in Detroit you can’t forget Motor City Blight Busters. These guys are unbelievable. Over an 18 year history, and with the backing of 12o,000 community volunteers, they’ve secured 379 abandoned buildings, built or renovated around 300 houses for about 1,160 people, and way more. Founder John George believes the future of Detroit is community-driven and about local restoration. And he knows it’s a multi-faceted project:

“If we’re trying to stabilize, revitalize, repopulate and beautify the City of Detroit, you gotta have murals, you gotta have affordable housing, you gotta tear down crack houses, you gotta help little old ladies across the street – you gotta do all of these things to make a better Detroit.”

This is what grassroots, community-driven action is all about. In the worst neighborhoods in the country, MCBB is already growing a culture of  community care and environmental restoration in place of consumerism and isolation. In terms of local connection, they’re making the wealthy suburbs look bad. I don’t think you can get to sustainability without that anywhere — but certainly not in Detroit. Check out their video, below.

Image credit: Public Art Workz