This story isn’t about cars, it’s about Detroit. One of the nice things about writing for this site is the freedom we have to explore topics not specifically about automobiles.
Of course, the simple truth is anything significant that affects the city of Detroit will, sooner or later, have an impact on the auto industry. Over on the east side, not that far from the infamous ruins of the Packard plant, the city is literally being regrown from the roots up.
The idea is to keep those occupied and maintained houses…
John Hantz has made a lot of money selling financial services, first with American Express and then with his own Hantz Group. He grew up in Romeo, Michigan, which is close enough to Detroit to have a Ford engine plant, but far enough that you can accurately describe it as rural. Despite his small town upbringing, Hantz fell in love with the Motor City. Mortgages are part of his business, so it’s not surprising that he personally bought and restored eight houses in Detroit’s still elegant Indian Village where he makes his home in one of them.
… from turning into decrepit hulks by improving the neighborhood’s quality of life.
Speaking of real estate, that’s arguably the city of Detroit’s biggest burden. Detroit is a big city and I don’t just mean the metro region is a major market. The city is physically large at 128 square miles. Our readers can fact check me, but I’m pretty sure that Detroit encompasses more real estate than the cities of Boston and Houston.
Hantz buys lots from the city and tears down abandoned houses.
Then there’s the local culture that was represented authentically in the Gran Torino movie. Detroiter’s like having their own homes. Walt Kowalski treasured his own house, with its own postage-stamp-sized lawn off of which he’d tell kids to get. Detroit and the region have very high single family residence rates.
They clear the properties and improve the sidewalks where needed.
In 1960, Detroit had a population very close to two million people. Today, it’s about 750,000. Take a city with lots of single family homes and reduce its population by two thirds and you’re going to have a lot of empty homes. Rental properties go unrented. Landlords stop doing maintenance. Squatters and scrappers descend. Lawns overgrow. Fires get set, jeopardizing remaining homes that are occupied. Property taxes don’t get paid, resulting in the city foreclosing. Those foreclosed lots don’t generate any taxes, but the folks who remain still need police and other city services that cost more than the tax revenue in those neighborhoods.
Grass is planted and mowed every two weeks. You can see the difference between two lots, one owned by Hantz, one not.
Up to 30 percent of the city’s real estate has been abandoned. The massive number of vacant lots in the city makes real estate almost worthless. While the city’s housing stock has been degraded, so have its trees been devastated by an alien species: the Dutch elm beetle. Before Dutch elm disease killed most of them, stately elm trees provided vase shaped canopies over most of the city’s residential streets.
Then they plant hardwood saplings.
Though the riot that killed 43 people and burned down scores of businesses in 1967 is generally attributed with driving whites from the city, the migration of people out of Detroit started long before that and probably had more to do with FHA and VA loans, the baby boom, another bedroom and a larger backyard than with urban unrest, crime or race. Half a million Detroiters had moved to the suburbs before 1960 — though at the time the city’s population remained stable, buoyed by southerners coming north for factory jobs.
Mike Score, President of Hantz Farms, is a hands on manager. That’s him with the weed wacker, cleaning up around the saplings.
John Hantz’s company has its headquarters in one of those suburbs. I want to say that it’s in Southfield but it might be on the edge of Farmington Hills. You can see the Hantz Group building off of I-696 as you drive into the metro region.
Hantz was commuting between his suburban office and home in the city, sitting at a traffic light in Detroit, surveying the blight: vacant and overgrown lots, broken glass and refuse, houses in various stages of collapse, or worse, burned out hulks. He wondered if all that land could be put to productive use.
Many of the remaining homes evidence pride of ownership and are well kept.
Michigan was once almost all forest and the forest will reclaim if not held at bay. You can find photos of trees growing on the rooftops of empty office buildings in Detroit and growing up through the wreckage of ruined homes.
I don’t know if those volunteer trees gave Hantz the idea, but he decided to start Hantz Farms. It’s what some call the world’s largest experiment in urban agriculture, on Detroit’s east side near Van Dyke, about a mile up Mack Ave from the location of Ford Motor Company’s first factory. Hantz started buying up hundreds of vacant lots and putting them back on the property tax rolls. Detroit had already been the location of a number of small scale urban farming attempts, a few lots here and there, but Hantz was planning on trying to make something like an actual farm.
In 2013, Hantz Farms came to an agreement with Gov. Rick Snyder to buy 1,300 city owned lots for $500,000. What had been stalled for years by the city bureaucracy was resolved while the state managed the city’s affairs as it went through municipal bankruptcy. Some, including then newly elected Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, saw it as a land grab by a rich businessman.
Most of the trees being planted are saplings, maybe three feet tall. To give residents an idea of what the woodlands will look like 10 years from now, a few lots have been planted with more mature trees.
Now that Hantz Farms has cleared 1,800 lots, including some 200 lots they don’t own, removed more than 50 blighted structures, and demonstrated that they are capable of regularly maintaining their properties, Mayor Duggan has come around to supporting the project. The finalization of the purchase agreement with the state was contingent on Hantz Farms satisfying those criteria. The company had two years to complete the task and it was accomplished to the city’s satisfaction in just 13 months.
The original plan was to raise crop plants, specifically high density fruit orchards and hoop greenhouses for growing tomatoes. That ran into objections from local residents, worried about attracting scavengers, both human and animal. While it’s been exaggerated, Detroit does indeed have a feral dog problem.
City bureaucrats weren’t the only obstacle. Hantz ran through a gantlet of various activists including environmentalists. Concerns over contaminated soils was another factor in abandoning the idea of using the land to grow food. At first, hardwood trees were going to be planted only where there were concerns about chemicals in the soil. Now Hantz Farms has developed into Hantz Woodlands with trees being the only thing planted.
They own 180 acres of land, some of it is contiguous while some are isolated lots. They’re paying to tear down the decrepit houses on the properties and clearing the land. They plant grass once the lots are cleared. All properties are mowed every two weeks and they’ve now started to plant their trees. All 180 acres are scheduled to be cleared by the end of this year. Eventually, what look like lawns is replaced with mulched rows of three foot tall saplings of ash, birch and maple.
A Hantz lot waits for its trees next to one recently planted.
So far, about 20,000 saplings have been planted with 25 acres now growing trees.
The difference between the Hantz properties and much of the area is stark. If you see shoulder high weeds or a wrecked house, it’s likely not one of their properties. It’s not a utopia, but it likely already improving quality of life in the area. Would you rather have your kid walk to school past an abandoned home or vacant lot where predators can hide, or past neatly planted rows of young trees?
Mike Score is the president of Hantz Farms and is literally a hands-on manager. When I visited the site recently, I found him with a weed wacker in his hands, cleaning up around the individual trees on one of their lots. Across the street, a crew was re-paving a sidewalk at Hantz expense. While driveways and other pieces of concrete on their lots have been removed, they’re leaving the sidewalks in place and fixing them where necessary. None of their properties are fenced in.
One goal of the project is to improve the quality of life for the people who still live in the neighborhood and to stabilize living conditions so there aren’t yet more burned out hulks. While some of the surviving homes are a little bit frayed around the edges, many of the remaining homes have the appearance of being very well kept.
While I was talking to Score, a woman living down the street called out to him, asking him about some brush on the perimeter of a Hantz lot adjacent to her home. Score clearly already had what appeared to be an affectionate relationship with the woman and he explained how the brush clearing was on the schedule. I asked her about the project and she couldn’t say enough nice things. “I wouldn’t be able to stay here if it wasn’t for them.”
John Hantz envisioned Hantz Farms as a business, saying that Detroit doesn’t need another non-profit organization of do-gooders with grandiose plans that get nothing done. If they’re not selling crops, though, how will they turn a profit?
During the controversies over the planning and startup of Hantz Farms, Hantz Financial discovered that a big chunk of their new business was driven by publicity from the project. Based on those results, they’re selling corporate sponsorships to companies, like Detroit-based Carhartt apparel, who gain credibility for environmental and social consciousness. Planting trees — or, more accurately, sponsoring the planting of trees — is a great way to get people involved in an enterprise. Just ask the Jewish National Fund.
Down the road, Hantz Woodlands has the option of becoming a commercial tree farm. Mike Score explained to me as long as their trees keep growing they’ll increase in value. The 10 year old trees that they planted in a few lots to show what the saplings that make up a majority of their plantings will look like a decade hence are worth a lot more than those saplings. As the trees grow and mature, they’ll have to be thinned out. The trees that will be removed can be replanted elsewhere on their property or they’ll have the option of selling them. As of now they buy their trees but in time they could start a tree nursery to grow their own saplings.
The project still has its critics. Hantz Woodlands does its plantings with volunteers as a way of getting people in the community involved in rebuilding Detroit. Detroit’s Metro Times — one of those weekly newspapers that subsidize left-wing political and cultural articles with revenue from things like escort ads — took exception to John Hantz, one of the city’s richest residents, asking for people to volunteer to help what he hopes will be a profit making business. None of the volunteers seem to object.
Class warriors, special interests and bureaucrats aside, it’s hard not to feel good about the project. We’ll keep you informed of developments.
Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS
It breaks your heart to watch your hometown succumb to this kind of long, slow decline. I grew up in St. Louis, which at one point was second only to Detroit in auto production – Ford, Chrysler and GM all had major presences in the area (in fact, the Corvette was made for many years there), but only GM remains, and its’ only plant is way outside the city, in Wentzville.
And like Detroit, St. Louis lost almost two-thirds of its population since 1950, resulting in vast brownfields. And on top of this, my hometown has toxic racial issues; believe me when I say that the only thing surprising about what happened in Ferguson was that it didn’t happen years before.
So, if this model works in Detroit, then I hope it can be used in places like St. Louis. I’ll never root for the Red Wings (sorry, lifelong Blues fan), but I’ll sure as hell root for Detroit.
Hey, we are in different conferences now. How about you root for the Wings against the Leafs and I’ll root for the Blues against the Hawks.
Or is does that Yzerman, game 7, OT goal still make that impossible?
Why do you wound me so, bball?
(Thank God for the Cardinals!)
Darn Cardinals. If the Tigers pitchers could just throw to first base in 2006…
David f’ing Eckstein…
You’ll note that the Tigers’ pitchers’ fielding has improved over the past decade. The new kid, Norris, fielded himself out of a jam in his debut game, snagging a pop bunt.
Eckstein was a piece of work, though…gone the next season.
But for me, it’s David Ortiz in 2013. Better living through chemistry…
It’s funny how Red Wings fans remember the Yzerman sudden death goal from 1996, but the Wings didn’t win the Stanley Cup that year, while in one of the years they one the cup (I’ll have to check) Sergei Federov scored a game tying goal in an elimination game for the Wings with just 3 seconds left in regulation. They went on to win that game, the series and then the cup.
I have huge admiration for Steve Yzerman as a player, captain, executive and human being. He’s one of the few athletes that I consider to be any kind of a role model. Sergei Federov, though, is the most talented hockey player I ever saw play.
Remember Alan Iverson’s infamous comments after being fined for missing practice? Yzerman had just had knee surgery, first time a professional athlete had a knee realignment so he could use what little cartilage he had left. He hadn’t yet even started to rehab the knee on an exercise bike. A reporter from one of the Detroit papers asked him what he was doing at a team practice. He replied, “I’m the captain. What message would it send if I wasn’t at practice?” Compare how many rings Yzerman has with how many Iverson doesn’t have.
Yzerman was a magnificent player. And Nick Lidstrom wasn’t far behind.
But the greatest player I’ve ever seen, hands down, was Lemieux (I’m talking #66, not Claude). Fedorov was fast, but Lemieux had the whole damn package – size, speed, shot, smarts, you name it. And he played with a TON of heart. If he’d stayed healthy, he’d have broken some of Gretzky’s records.
As far as talent goes, Sergei Federov > Steve Yzerman. When Bowman showed up, he didn’t want to trade Federov. It was Yzerman he wanted gone. Sergei played defense and embraced Bowman’s system right away. 91 needs to be retired this year. I could watch videos of Sergei skating the puck out of the zone and down the ice for eternity.
Yes, there were times when Federov would circle behind his own goal, start up the ice and you just knew he was going to go end to end and put the red light on. The guy had some level of class too – how many offensive stars would be willing to take a shift as a defenseman?
When the book on running a successful sports franchise is written, the Jimmy Devellano built Detroit Red Wings will be a prominent subject.
Fedorov was amazing to watch, but Yzerman was a far better rounded player. Later in his career he even re-made his defensive game.
I never saw much interest on Fedorov’s part on playing D. Maybe that’s just how I perceived his game, but I didn’t watch the Wings regularly.
“Fedorov was amazing to watch, but Yzerman was a far better rounded player”
False. Federov actually played defense on some of those Red Wings teams at time. He played the point on the power play, and played defense in Columbus and Washington. Scotty Bowman once said that Federov was the best defensive player he’s ever coached.
Didn’t know that, bball…thanks. Guess I didn’t see a lot of Wings games.
But Yzerman was definitely a good defensive player too…won a Selke, as I recall.
Freed Mike,
Have you ever wondered how all this would have played out if race were never an issue? The same corporate evolution and globalization pressures would have ensued, they would have just impacted a relatively homogenous white culture. Would results have been much the same?
The state of Irish immigrants to America in the 19th Century, before their break-out and mainstreaming, says it certainly could have, particularly if Catholicism remained a major influence.
Are you kidding? If the civil rights movement had happened right after the Civil War, not 100 years later, I have no doubt race issues would be FAR less prevalent today.
Irish people faced massive amounts of bigotry, but were able to overcome it in large part by becoming part of the political system, both as voters and politicians. But until 50 years ago, in many parts of this country, black people weren’t even able to vote. And when they tried their hand at politics, here’s what they got in return:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPrHwmiUMH0
Keep in mind that was happening 50 years ago. I don’t recall similar things happening to Irish people – or any other member of any other racial or ethnic group, for that matter, at the same time.
As a group, blacks in America have made an immense amount of progress in 50 years, but we’re clearly not “there” yet when it comes to racial issues in this country. And the only way to fix that is to point that fact out.
I think we’re transmitting on different frequencies.
BART: Maybe it’ll wear off, like his interest in C.B. radio.
HOMER: That’s a negatory, good buddy!
My frequency is frequently different…
Excellent article Ronnie. The Metro Times has basically turned into Buzzfeed Detroit with left of Elizabeth Warren editorials (not making a judgment on polictics, just stating a fact). I’ve volunteered at Hantz, like I do with numerous other Detroit projects. I devoted more time to the Cass Corridor because I used to live there, but that neighborhood has changed enough not to need my help anymore.
Also, Detroit is about the size of San Francisco and Boston combined. Houston is basically 600 square miles. It. Never. Ends.
Like the cleaning of a house, It Never Ends.
I thought Houston was the largest geographical city in the US that is not merged with its county, but per Wikipedia, Oklahoma City seems to hold that title. But Houston actually has filled its borders, and it will be just a matter of weeks before it annexes (occupies) another unwilling neighborhood.
How is Houston a larger urban sprawl than LA? I always thought LA got all the flack for being too spread out and car dependent etc.
I’m gonna go there in October, after Phoenix – for a week! I figure that will give me time to make it through three or four traffic jams on freeway 10 or whatever, 404, 101.
When I drive into Houston I draw the line when traffic, houses and stores out number cows and fields. Which is at least 10 miles from the actual city border.
It isn’t a measure of urban sprawl, but the actual area of the city limits. Southern California (LA) is several cities all grown together. Houston is, for the most part, just Houston (plus unincorporated land that Houston will seize when it becomes profitable for them).
Houston’s sprawl is roughly a 50 mi diameter circle. LA is constrained by valleys, so it’s a more complicated shape, and I don’t know its approximate area.
Ah that makes sense. All those little areas of LA which are separate cities.
I can’t wait to check out the Covina Bowl!
This article is a day-brightener.
+1 Another great piece, Ronnie.
As a suburbanite of Pittsburgh, I’d like to see something good like this happen here. Our city has followed a similar – but less dramatic – path as Detroit. Small improvements occur, but I am not aware of any grand projects like this.
What a great project, and I hope Mr. Hantz succeeds.
Of course, if the trees are valuable Detroit’s former copper thieves may decide to become loggers and the urban forest may become an urban desert. Never underestimate the ability of low lifes to foul their own nest.
Japanese Maples and other small, expensive trees often get stolen in the inner ring Detroit suburbs. Tree theft is a concern because some of these trees will be worth thousands of dollars. That being said, it is much easier to sell copper than a tree.
I also appreciate that Hantz is planting high value trees like oaks and maples.
Concerning high value trees, I asked Mike Score about black walnuts and he said they considered them but the soil isn’t appropriate for that tree species.
One mature black walnut, I’m told, can be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
The trees they do plant are good trees. More variety would be good, but they have a great start. Mike knows way more about soil and growing stuff than I do though.
Black walnuts are valuable, but they are toxic to many plants and trees. You won’t see pines near them, for example.
Making a hardwood woodlot is a time and money investment for the long term with a lot of forestry work required to select the best trees and remove the rest. The value of the wood also depends on the tree’s history. The expensive trees are bought by veneer mills. They will obviously stay away from trees that might have nails in them. Trees also need a length of trunk that hasn’t had any branches growing out of it for a long time. That’s where the woodlot management comes in. Maybe in time that will make sense for Hantz Farms. But this is still a great story if that never happens.
A hardwood tree that kills pines? Bonus.
I’m just wondering about planting ash trees. If the Emerald Ash Borer hasn’t made it to Detroit yet, it will before long.
Oh it’s here. All the ash trees are dead now. They started dying in the late 90s.
I assume they chose trees which don’t create a lot of “mess” but you will have lots of acorns and whirlygigs with those.
I’ll bet Hantz is one of those evil Republicans.
He is, but he hasn’t been someone that is overtly political. He donates to mostly GOP candidates, but he lives in a city that is basically doesn’t have an R on any city ballot. Hantz being a white republican living in the city of Detroit has upset the apple cart.
The people complaining about the 1500 abandoned lots Hantz bought for cheap have no plan besides complaining. They are mad that the process didn’t go through them, or that they don’t have any influence over it. They also wanted Hantz to grow food. There are plenty of abandoned lots to go around. If someone wants one, the city and county have plenty for sale.
What does that matter?
It matters to some Detroiters that don’t want someone like Hantz buying 1500 lots in Detroit. His politics and background have a lot to do with the extended time it took for this project to start.
That’s too bad. Oftentimes entrenched politics get in the way of progress.
Here in Colorado, the Republicans just shot down a program that provided free Norplant – the program proved incredibly effective at preventing unwanted pregnancies with poor women. Apparently they were stuck in “ideologically opposed” mode.
Just dumb on so many levels. Sometimes you have to step outside your own ideological box.
I don’t even think it’s a Dem-Rep thing. It’s a white guy that moved into Detroit thing. Everything Hantz has tried to do has had very vocal opposition. Even Danny Glover showed up to complain. Hantz had the mayor and governor on his side, so he was able to get things done.
Ronnie, this is a terrific piece, extremely well-written. I greatly enjoyed reading it.
As someone who lives in a rural area it looks pretty good to me.
Absolutely. Trees always > slag.
As someone who is saddened by the constant loss of green space inside cities, this looks wonderful to me.
That’s a really beautiful story. Thank you for covering it.
Ronnie I read years back about a plan to raze large swaths of land and engage in urban farming, have you heard anything about this?
They have done this. There are a number of urban farms in Detroit. It isn’t to the size of Hantz, but the amount of farms is growing.
Personally, my money goes to the urban farm run by Capuchin-Franciscan friars on Detroit’s east side. They’ve been doing good things in Detroit for over 125 years.
How about a few Christmas tree plots thrown in there for good measure? Many of those varieties grow 2 ft or more per year.
That would be cool. They’d get a bunch of people to come chop down their Christmas trees in Detroit. I’m sure they would grow. Northwest Michigan is covered in Christmas trees. I’ve even been to a Christmas tree cutting festival…
There’s a fair amount of maintenance to get shapely Xmas trees ready for cutting. That would mean some jobs but it would also take more money before realizing any profit. You would also have to control access or else I fear a number of people would help themselves to free trees each year.
Growing trees and shrubs for the landscape trade could be a good venture. It still takes several years to get good sized plants ready for digging, but the profit isn’t high enough to tempt thieves to do the work necessary and locally grown material is generally superior to stuff shipped in from points south.
Thanks, Ronnie, for an informative article and a very entertaining comments section.
Having lived across the Detroit River in Windsor ON for almost a decade, being supported by my father’s job in the auto industry, I will always root for Detroit to turn things around. This looks very promising.
Nik Lidstrom, by far, is the best player to ever wear the winged wheel logo, IMHO.
Why not rather plant fruit trees? So much more use to them, and they will always attract people and wildlife.
(I have to admit i haven’t read the entire article or all comments)
People that lived nearby were worried about pesticides and vermin. Hantz would have also had to deal with food production rules and various public/private partnerships that would have wanted a cut or a say in how things were run.
I’d worry about the lots and lots of bugs and squirrels that fruit trees attract. They’re messy as well if someone isn’t maintaining it constantly.
Well written Ronnie. I am all for further follow up articles related to this.
It is a shame that politics got in the way of someone legitimately attempting to do some good. Calling it a blatantly land grab…yes it is. No one else wants it, he is willing to fund the renovation work. The volunteers will all benefit from stabilizing neighborhoods, less crime etc. he can sell some trees 10 years from now. Who loses in this deal?
Wikipedia reports the land area of Boston at 48.42 square miles, and of Houston at 599.59 square miles. Then again, they credit Detroit with 138.75.
(I live in a place that covers more ground than any of those — and with fewer people, too.)
“Some, including then newly elected Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, saw it as a land grab by a rich businessman.”
Yeah because those no-revenue generating abandoned lots and havens for crime need to stay there, so a rich man don’t get em and clean em!
I glare at this mayor with disapproval.
Duggan is alright. He has been mostly positive about the project. He changed his view when Hantz started clearing land and abandoned buildings. He eventually offered up more land for the project.
Wasn’t the last Detroit mayor a big crook? Bing, had to look up his name.
Kwame Kilpatrick was the crook. Dave Bing was just ineffective.
I’m serving at a church in the city and did some extensive research on the Hantz project. I came to much different conclusions. A for-profit tree farm bankrolled by a wealthy white businessman does virtually nothing for hundreds of thousands of people of color displaced by mortgage & tax foreclosures and massive water shutoffs. Hantz and Score shouldn’t be the subject of hagiographies. See my piece in The Mennonite here: https://themennonite.org/feature/white-supremacy-and-class-privilege-in-detroit/
Ronnie, are there statistics regarding how often predators have used derelict properties to facilitate an abduction?
Or are you using the word “predator” to include things like robbery and drug dealing?
Somehow I missed this in August .
Nice to see positive things occurring in MoTown again .
-Nate