{"id":12632,"date":"2014-01-31T03:30:05","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T03:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/challengedetroit.org\/blog\/samanthaszeszulski\/?p=20"},"modified":"2014-01-31T03:30:05","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T03:30:05","slug":"preserving-detroit-and-battling-blight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/preserving-detroit-and-battling-blight\/","title":{"rendered":"Preserving Detroit and Battling Blight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\">We\u2019ve all heard about Detroit\u2019s blight issues, and seen many of pictures and new reports showing nothing but that. And it is true;\u00a0<span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">neighborhood blight is a big issue in Detroit, and a big concern when it comes to matters of safety a<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">nd n<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">eighborhood growth.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS6Da5ulpv_XUBy-0McHn86TMAwVchG9yKa-nuS8p_Srqj5wmyzFg\" width=\"275\" height=\"183\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">Well Detroit has recently received $52 million dollars of the\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">\u201cHardest Hit Funds\u201d to put towards Detroit\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">area demolitions. With the lack of city money to deal with issues such as this, Detroit is doing its best to make sure every dollar counts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">The Detroit community has put together a number of community leaders,including Mr. Gilbert himself,\u00a0to decide where that money goes, and which structures will be demolished. This blight task force will be surveying the properties in the city, and evaluating them individually (based on their condition) for demolition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-21 alignleft\" alt=\"PD\" src=\"http:\/\/challengedetroit.org\/samanthaszeszulski\/files\/2014\/01\/PD.jpg\" width=\"160\" height=\"160\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But is the condition of a structure really the only factor that should be taken into account when deciding whether or not to demolish a structure? Mr. Gilbert and the blight task force don\u2019t think so. Preservation Detroit doesn\u2019t think so. And I don\u2019t think so either.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\"><strong>\u00a0Preservation Detroit<\/strong> and the <strong>Michigan Historic Preservation Network<\/strong> have partnered to bring a new level of data to the table when making these decisions. While Mr. Gilbert and his team will be evaluating the parcels based on condition, these preservation groups thought it valuable to evaluate structures based on other criteria.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>What is the condition of its architectural integrity?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Does it fit in with the neighborhood characteristics?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>What is the intactness of the block?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Does it require further research and attention?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s what they did. I, along with numerous other trained and untrained volunteers set out to six neighborhoods across the city in groups of three or four. Within 3.5 weeks, these survey teams collected this information on over 19,000 individual properties.\u00a0 I loved having the chance to explore the historic streets of the Morningside\/ East English Village and the Southwest Detroit neighborhoods to collect this information.\u00a0 But more importantly, is what will happen with this information.\u00a0 This information collected by myself and numerous other volunteers will be at the table when the decision makers are deciding which structures to tear down, and this information will help to protect important pieces of Detroit\u2019s architectural history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0And yeah, I got to be a part of that.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve all heard about Detroit\u2019s blight issues, and seen many of pictures and new reports showing nothing but that. And it is true;\u00a0neighborhood blight is a big issue in Detroit, and a big concern when it comes to matters of safety and neighborhood growth.\u00a0\u00a0 Well Detroit has recently received $52 million dollars of the\u00a0\u201cHardest Hit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}