10 HOUSES A DAY

Detroit is finding it easier to tear down homes than to make property owners pay for the demolition.
The city has sent invoices totaling more than $2.2 million to owners of abandoned homes razed as part of Mayor Dave Bing's massive demolition project.

The total collected so far: $13,024.

The plans is to tear down 10,000 homes over 3 years, adding another 10,000 vacant lots to the city total. This is an ambitious project that amounts to 10 houses a day, 365 days a year for 3 years. Some of the money earmarked for this has come from Federal incentives and this money runs out this year. So, who ends paying for this when it's obvious that many of the property owners have no money, are no longer in the area or the paperwork is long gone? Many of the homes already torn down have been abandoned for many years and former owners are long gone.

"With less than half the population of its peak in 1950, Detroit neighborhoods are pockmarked by empty homes. Vacant buildings often pose a danger to neighborhood children, are used as drug houses and drive down property values. "

“Things that were unthinkable are now becoming thinkable,” said James W. Hughes, dean of the School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, who is among the urban experts watching the experiment with interest. “There is now a realization that past glories are never going to be recaptured. Some people probably don’t accept that, but that is reality"