News

In a new vision of Detroit's future, a team of visiting urban planners suggests the city might one day resemble the English countryside, with distinct urban villages surrounded by farms, fields and meadows. Advertisement

The idea may sound improbable, but Alan Mallach, a New Jersey-based planner who led the visiting team, said Detroit is evolving in that direction anyway, with large chunks of the city now largely abandoned.

"In a way, think of it as a 21st-Century version of a traditional country pattern," Mallach said. "You have high-density development on one side of the street and cows on the other, quite literally."

The team's recommendations, contained in a draft report by a committee of the American Institute of Architects, are the latest in a flurry of ideas for dealing with Detroit's growing vacancy.

Detroit's population is less than half of its 1950s peak, and an estimated 40 square miles of the 139-square-mile city are empty.

The committee suggests that Detroit could recreate itself as a 21st-Century version of the English countryside.

"Isn't that basically what's happening? Even without any plans or strategies?" Mallach asked.

But he added, "It's happening in a sloppy, destructive fashion where you get areas that are essentially abandoned, but they're not useable open space, they're not environmentally sound, so they're basically wasteland."

Instead, the team suggests planning for that future by relocating residents out of distressed areas and concentrating new development in more vital nodes such as Midtown or Mexicantown.

Mallach and his team visited Detroit as part of a program known as SDAT, for Sustainable Design Assessment Team. The SDAT program sends teams of volunteer architects, planners and other experts to a community to help map steps toward a more sustainable future, both economically and environmentally.

The Detroit SDAT team visited the city in late 2008 and has yet to issue its final report. But its draft report has been circulating widely among local community groups and is already stirring debate about its core recommendations.

What do to with Detroit's vacant land has sparked considerable discussion lately. In one prominent idea, businessman John Hantz recently proposed using hundreds or thousands of acres of vacant land for commercial farming.

Meanwhile, the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and other nonprofit groups have been working to create more greenways through Detroit's open spaces to link neighborhoods.

Just last week, the latest link in this network, the 1.2-mile Dequindre Cut, opened on the city's near-east side.

Urban villages in Detroit's future?