On either side of the river is the tree of life[ with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
The city of Detroit is in a death spiral, or so we hear on a regular basis. The city filed for bankruptcy, and retired civil servants are in danger of losing pensions. Once magnificent edifices are crumbling and there is talk of selling off part of the exceptional city art collection to pay the bills. Many people are so poor they can't pay their water bills and for a time hundreds were cut off daily. How can this happen in an American city?
In 1900 there were approximately 300,00 residents in Detroit, but by 1950 that was 1.85 million, growth driven by the auto sector and industry. Then the decline began and today less than 700,000 live in Detroit. This has resulted in the abandonment of whole neighbourhoods, the razing of more than 100,000 properties, while tens of thousands more are derelict.
The challenge is enormous, but what if these wastelands were transformed? A master plan developed to respond to this reality, called Detroit Future City, imagines the reclamation of land. It would be used for parks, forests, industrial buffers, greenways, retention ponds, community gardens, and even campgrounds. Of course this would cost a lot of money, and this is a bankrupt city but perhaps this project would put people back to work, giving them and the city some hope.
At the risk of flogging some verses to death, the vision of the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem of the book of Revelation has plenty of trees and clean rivers. Oh yes, and everyone has enough to drink: "To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."
Why wait for the new Jerusalem? A new Detroit sounds good, as does the creative revitalization of many cities.
Does this sound like a pipe-dream, or could it happen? Should it happen?
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