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“That’s going to be one of our biggest costs, going through the parcels,” Hantz said.
An increasing number of community gardens in Detroit—from approximately 80 in 2003 to 1,300 at present—seem to attest to the viability of Detroit’s soil. According to Dan Carmody, the head of Detroit’s mammoth farmer’s market, Eastern Market, there are a variety of solutions to Detroit’s soil quality.
“There are short-term solutions, there are long-term solutions, but [the soil quality] should not be an impediment,” Carmody said in a panel discussion at the University of Michigan, Dearborn.
He cited the planting of sunflowers, which can leech heavy metals out of soil, and also said that 12 inches of top soil can be simply put on top as a viable solution.
Down the Street
John Hantz lives on Iroquois Street in Indian Village, one of few affluent neighborhoods left in Detroit. His manicured lawn and grand home seem like a relic of Detroit’s glory days.
DETROIT RESIDENTS: Earnest and Georgia Sanders sit in front of their family photos in their Detroit home on July 1, 2010. (Valerie Avore/The Epoch Times)
About a mile down on Iroquois Street—no longer in Indian Village—lives Earnest Sanders, a retired General Motors factory worker who has lived in his Detroit home for 47 years. His two-level house is more modest in size than Hantz’s, but the two Detroit residents share an affinity for manicured lawns.
Sanders lives directly across from Pingree Park, a sprawling plot with three-feet-high weeds. Next to the park is an abandoned school, where locals do drugs, he said.
While he’s proud of his community of neighbors on Iroquois Street, Sanders said, there are a lot of “no-gooders” just a block away.
“We’re people with values and morals, but we’re surrounded by people who don’t have values and morals,” he said on his porch overlooking the park.
Pingree Park would not be a possible area for a Hantz farm, since it’s a city park, but the abandoned school next door could, in theory, be bulldozed and sold to Hantz. Money saved and taxes collected from such a farm could probably pay for more regular maintenance on the untended park next door.
Asked to comment on Hantz Farms, Sanders said, “If you can produce something that’s beneficial to the community, that’s wonderful."
