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Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

Demolishing Detroit

The Detroit Free Press ran a story this week called “With so much space, so few options – Detroit’s vast vacant lots are a burden” highlighting the sheer scale of the vacant land problem in Detroit. As they note:

If vacant lots were painted red, an aerial view of Detroit would look like a bad case of the measles. There is so much empty land today within Detroit’s 139 square miles — land slowly returning to nature with no buildings — the city of Paris could fit inside. If all that land were gathered into football fields, Detroit could host 25,000 simultaneous games.

In recent years there have been ten times more demolition permits as construction permits, as this Free Press graphic shows:

h/t Chicagoist

Bonus Data Graphic: Real Time Wind Map

If you haven’t seen it already, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg have put out a very cool real time wind map that shows the current winds streaking across the United States. Here’s a still of what it looks like. Click through to check it out.

h/t Likecool

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Topics: Public Policy, Sustainability
Cities: Detroit

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