For many, Detroit is a poster child for urban decay. Its checkered past is rife with racial tension, its present plagued by urban sprawl and corruption - and yet it is exactly these conditions that have set the stage for one of the most audacious experiments in urban living.
What am I talking about? This.
You read that right: enterprising activists, farmers, and entrepreneurs are banding together to transform dilapidated Detroit into the next American breadbasket. In the process, Detroit is becoming a testing ground for everything from green building technologies to renewable energy. If even a small proportion of these ventures take off, the Motor City may very well out-green us all.
Closing remarks: yes, this is old news. That said, a revolution in urban farming may be exactly what we need to craft cities that are more compact and efficient. Of course, astronomical land values make this all but impossible in, say, Manhattan - but the basic idea can be adapted to other forms, such as community rooftop gardens (or greenhouses in colder climates.) That's what this post is essentially getting at: there are several good ideas here that deserve to be tested elsewhere. Cities with control over their building codes, such as Vancouver, are well positioned to do just that; in other cities, archaic bylaws must first be overturned or updated.