Doug Farr on Detroit, His Hometown

Q: What is a strategy for sustainable urbanism in a place with the challenges of Detroit?

A: In a city designed for 2 million people with less than half that many today, Detroit still has a number of interesting opportunities.

One way is to look to parts of the city where you can build on the city's existing urban bones.

I'm a believer in traditional urban structure … the spine and musculature of a city. These are tenants of New Urbanism and are highlighted in three key areas to focus Detroit's future development energy: the neighborhood, the district and the corridor. Detroit needs to identify the best examples of each and make sure they work at a high level.

Another way that sustainable urbanism can be implemented in Detroit is by growing the city's urban agriculture movement.I know there are large pockets of the city that are vacant and in some ways this idea is counter-intuitive to city building, but in Detroit it can really work."