I am starting to get obsessed with Detroit. It’s a city on the verge of colapse, but that means it’s also on the verge of renewal. The decay and abandonment due to the consequences of the economic colapse has left the city ripe for a culural remodel, not unlike post-Katrina New Orleans.

Here is an excerpt from an article on Detroit’s possiblity as an urban farming leader:

Detroit may be in the best position to become the world’s first 100 percent food self-sufficient city…talk about sustainability! Imagine America’s once prosperous, industrial Detroit as the first modern American city where agriculture, not automobiles, is the most vital industry. Mark Dowie, an investigative historian, eloquently portrayed a vision of Detroit in his article, Food Among the Ruins, as one where growing in the city are “chard and tomatoes on vacant lots, orchards on former school grounds, mushrooms in open basements, fish in abandoned factories, hydroponics in bankrupt department stores, livestock grazing on former golf courses, high rise farms in old hotels and waving wheat where cars were once test-driven.”

Click here to read the whole article, titled Detroit: The Next Agrarian Paradise? And click here to visit the Detroit UnReal Estate Agency, a fascinating  blog about transforming empty lots into comunity gardens and buying houses for $1800.