Can This Planner Save Detroit?

Posted by Carol Coletta on October 20, 2010

Toni Griffin, a featured panelist at the upcoming CEOs for Cities Urban Leaders Summit in Detroit November 8-9, is the focus of a Q&A in Architect. 

Toni spoke of the limits of government and the benefit of small scale projects to writer Fred Bernstein.  "Government can make some transformative moves, but those are going to be combined with a lot of smaller-scale efforts that bubble up from the grass roots," she said.  "There are already examples of that happening. For example, people are using public art projects and community agriculture to transform entire neighborhoods."

Toni also expressed some skepticism about urban farming as a solution to Detroit's vacant land problem.  "Community gardening is already having an amazing impact by providing access to healthy food in communities where it was not readily available. Whether that can be ratcheted up to a scale where it significantly alters the urban form remains to be seen," she said.

Read the complete interview here.  And if you are a CEOs for Cities partner and have not registered for the Detroit meeting, you may still be able to do so by contacting Sparekh at CEOsforCities.org