25 percent of the population fled Detroit between 2000 and 2010. Large amounts of the downtown retail area are vacant as well. Meanwhile, urban homesteaders are flocking to the area in search of great deals on housing and neighborhoods with a “hipster” type vibe.
“Former landscaper and University of Michigan social psychology student Tyson Gersh, now 26, headed to Detroit in 2011, hoping to establish an urban farming initiative to address the city’s very real food insecurities. At a tax auction, he and a fellow Michigan alum paid $5,025 for a six-unit apartment complex in the city’s blighted North End, to act as the center of operations as they converted a nearby, 1.5-acre plot of land into an urban farm. While Gersh originally envisioned a straightforward urban ag initiative centered on growing food and distributing it to the community, he quickly realized that any meaningful project would have to take Detroit’s unique situation into account.”
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