Report Recommends $850 Million to Eradicate Detroit's Blight

Khalil AlHajal shares news of the report released this morning by the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force, which sets an aggressive, five-year agenda for reducing blight in the city. "Eradicating neighborhood blight would cost about $850 million, but could be accomplished within five years with an aggressive approach," writes AlHajal. Moreover, "[addressing] larger-scale industrial sites would cost another $500 million to $1 billion."

On the scale of the problem to be addressed by the proposed plan: "After an exhaustive survey that explored 377,602 properties across the entire city, the task force counted 78,506 structures and 6,135 vacant lots in need of intervention. That includes 40,077 blighted structures and another 38,429 abandoned properties that appear on their way to becoming a nuisance."

As for a way forward, the report "recommends demolition and rehabilitation in geographically concentrated efforts, 'rather than the scattered, sometimes random approach of the past.'"