The $100 house
More tales of urban collapse and urban renewal from Detroit:
For Sale: The $100 House.
[...] The run-down bungalow had already been stripped of its appliances and wiring by the city’s voracious scrappers. But for Mitch that only added to its appeal, because he now had the opportunity to renovate it with solar heating, solar electricity and low-cost, high-efficiency appliances.
Buying that first house had a snowball effect. Almost immediately, Mitch and Gina bought two adjacent lots for even less and, with the help of friends and local youngsters, dug in a garden. Then they bought the house next door for $500, reselling it to a pair of local artists for a $50 profit. When they heard about the $100 place down the street, they called their friends Jon and Sarah.
Admittedly, the $100 home needed some work, a hole patched, some windows replaced. But Mitch plans to connect their home to his mini-green grid and a neighborhood is slowly coming together.
Wow. I am not nearly resourceful enough to take over a place with no wiring, especially in a place with severe winters. But... I know some people who are, and I've seen much more unlikely enterprises come together with just a few dozen volunteers, a few weekends, and cheap Chinese goods from the hardware store.
Is it wrong to feel strangely drawn to this urban disaster area? I read tales of people bicycling down totally vacant four lane highways and something in me goes hey, that's pretty freaking cool. I guess I am a child of the 1980s, always expecting the apocalypse. And the experiment in local semi-anarchy seems to be working out not too badly.
I mean, no matter how bad the economy gets, it's never going to get Detroit bad, everywhere. If this represents the nadir, and life still goes on, maybe there's nothing to fear. Maybe the artists who moved to those places will be highly in demand as urban renewal consultants in 10 years.
(via four)