密歇根新闻广播 底特律破产多出的空地不是失败,是机遇?

Still less than a year out of its historic bankruptcy¹, Detroit's successes and failures continue to make headlines.

The city may have shed most of its debt, but it continues to lose population – down more than 60% of its 1950 population of 1.8 million.

Take that shrinking population and couple it with Mayor Mike Duggan's ongoing² push to tear down blighted³ buildings, and you get a lot of empty land.

Bill McGraw's latest story for Bridge Magazine looks at Mayor Duggan's blueprint⁴ for redesigning Detroit.

McGraw tells us that the city's rise in vacant land is directly linked to its drastically shrinking population.

"Even in the last census⁵ period from 2000 to 2010 the city lost a quarter of its population," he says, adding that we won't really know how things have changed in the last five years until the next census is completed.

According to McGraw, 23 of Detroit's 140 square miles are now vacant land.

The vacant land is scattered⁶ throughout the city, but when combined, that's as much as the land surface area of Manhattan, "and there's more all the time."

"One of the things Mayor Duggan is doing is he's tearing down houses at a faster rate than any previous mayor," McGraw tells us.

City planners and mayors have historically seen vacant land as a bad sign, but Detroit's looking at it differently.

Under the city's new planning director Maurice Cox, "They have decided⁷ that vacant land can be productive, and it can be used in a number of different ways," McGraw says.

Those include using vacant land for parks and other recreation spaces, as well as developing "so-called blue and green infrastructure," according to McGraw.

As an example of the latter, he tells us that it's much cheaper to turn the vacant land into receptacles for storm water, rather than deal with the effects of letting it run into the sewer⁸ system and causing it to overflow⁹ into the Detroit River.

He adds that simply taking the vacant land and making it look nice and rural can go a long way toward improving the quality of life for residents.

Further, McGraw tells us there's an increasing movement by both the city and its citizens to convert vacant lots into productive agricultural zones.

It all boils down to the city's acceptance of the fact that with its smaller population, it can't afford to put more buildings on that land.

Instead of seeing so much vacant land as a symbol of failure, they're moving forward and finding constructive¹⁰ and productive ways to make use of it.

Bill McGraw's story, Redesigning Detroit: Mayor Mike Duggan's blueprint unveiled can be found at bridgemi.com and also at MLive.com.

1 bankruptcy   

n.破产；无偿付能力

参考例句：

• You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产，就必须节省开支。
• His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。

2 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

3 blighted   

adj.枯萎的，摧毁的

参考例句：

• Blighted stems often canker.有病的茎往往溃烂。
• She threw away a blighted rose.她把枯萎的玫瑰花扔掉了。

4 blueprint   

n.蓝图，设计图，计划；vt.制成蓝图，计划

参考例句：

• All the machine parts on a blueprint must answer each other.设计图上所有的机器部件都应互相配合。
• The documents contain a blueprint for a nuclear device.文件内附有一张核装置的设计蓝图。

5 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

6 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 sewer   

n.排水沟，下水道

参考例句：

• They are tearing up the street to repair a sewer. 他们正挖开马路修下水道。
• The boy kicked a stone into the sewer. 那个男孩把一石子踢进了下水道。

9 overflow   

v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出

参考例句：

• The overflow from the bath ran on to the floor.浴缸里的水溢到了地板上。
• After a long period of rain,the river may overflow its banks.长时间的下雨天后，河水可能溢出岸来。

10 constructive   

adj.建设的，建设性的

参考例句：

• We welcome constructive criticism.我们乐意接受有建设性的批评。
• He is beginning to deal with his anger in a constructive way.他开始用建设性的方法处理自己的怒气。