Productive landscapes as strategic assets for urban communities re-invention: key insights from Detroit

The present paper addresses one of the key research trajectories identified at the IPSAPA- ISPALEM XVI International Interdisciplinary Conference, entitled: “The reinvention of abandoned urban communities: costly fake or a genuine renaissance?”. In particular, it seeks to provide an insight into some of its possible answers through the lens of the “landscape-cultural mosaic in transition” of the North-American City of Detroit and, more specifically, through the productive landscapes’ geographies recently emerging there. The context of contemporary Detroit has been identified as especially relevant setting for the above-mentioned theme examination since it represents a unique crossroad between the condition of progressive abandonment of space, on one hand, and its gradual “reinvention” through productive landscapes, on the other. Due to the heavy reorganization of one of the core economic sectors of the City – the car industry – during the last decades its social, cultural and spatial integrity was put under unbearable pressure. A violent “shrinking” process took place taking more than half of its inhabitants away: once designed to host 2.5 million, today Detroit is a home to only 713,777 (2010 census) people. Furthermore, this whopping demographic loss was paired by a deepening economic crisis throwing more than one third of the current citizens below the poverty line (Pothukuchi 2011). As a result, along with the social matrix of the city, the spatial one was progressively eroded as well: today there are as many as 100,719 parcels laying vacant in Detroit (Detroit Works 2012). And yet, what makes Detroit a so stimulating case for investigation are not so much the numbers describing its decline, whereas those testifying the growing momentum for transition toward a new beginning. Recently, the city has become widely known for its grassroots initiatives reclaiming control over open spaces and defending citizens’ right to high-quality and supportive urban environments. These initiatives represent unique urban laboratories where the productive landscapes regenerative potential is being incrementally tested. Presently “there are more than 875 urban gardens and farms and 9 registered Farmers’ Markets in Detroit” (ibid.). A living urban heritage that may arguably represent one of the key strategic assets for the city’s negative trends reverse. What is more, it is worth noticing that its magnitude is already seriously challenging the assumption that local food belongs exclusively to the rural development domain. By reflecting on some of the social, spatial and economic evidences emerged so far, the present paper aims to further examine this latter hypothesis. As a structuring framework for the analysis, three overarching figurative dimensions – disenchantments, dynamics and dissolves – advanced at the Conference have been adopted. The first section briefly introduces the Detroit context and highlights the trends characterizing the disenchanted “motor city” giant. Throughout the second and main section the productive landscapes (PLs) role within the emerging positive transformative dynamics is discussed. A third section is dedicated to a set of transversal considerations that aim to provide a further insight into the possible dynamics’ interpretations and their possible perception as transition dissolves instead of ultimate ends. Finally, the main findings and outlooks for future research are synthetically summarized in the paper’s conclusive section.