Midwest Meltdown Case Study

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English 102, 10:00 a.m. 5 December 2010 Midwest Meltdown Dear Mr. President, we are writing you today with great concern regarding the situation in the Midwest region of the United States. As the up 2012 presidential election quickly approaches we would recommend that your focus be directed to the Detroit, Michigan; Flint, Michigan and Youngstown, Ohio regions. Ohio and Michigan have lost anywhere from fifty –to-sixty percent of their population due to the reduction of available work, resulting in an influx of blight. Mr. President, there is much for you to gain by addressing the blight and lack of employment in the “Rust Belt” cities. Please address your attention to combating this through land banks, urban farmland, urban forest and…show more content…
It soon became a vehicle to aid communities in development and revitalization. In the article “Greening the Rust Belt,” Joseph Schilling and Jonathan Logan quote F.S Alexander as saying, “Land banks are typically governmental or quasi-public entities that convert vacant, abandoned and tax-delinquent properties to productive reuse.”(458). Many of the Midwest states have taken advantage of the governmental aid in establishing land banks; for instance, in Cleveland, Ohio Land Banks were established in 2008 and signed into law in January 2009 and have been helping with the…show more content…
Mr. President, the results from the November 2010 midterm elections have exposed a divide between coastal cities and less-dense areas of the Midwest. The Republican Party’s big gain in the house came largely from cities that were older, less educated and highly blue-collar areas. Nineteen of the twenty-three seats that were picked up by the Republican Party were in the Midwest states. With the increase in blight from the loss of jobs, and the loss of population, many of the vacant homes are beyond repair; therefore, even if the land banks were to purchase them they could not restore them. We recommend that you publicly show support to the green idea of urban farmland. Since many jobs have been taken from cities and sent overseas the loss of revenue has been detrimental to the cities. There is a company in Detroit, Michigan that is purchasing over 5,000 acres over the next five years. This property will be in the middle of the city and they plan to convert it into urban farm land. The name of the company is HANTZ Farms. They will began with a 70 acre purchase and proceed from there. The revenue the city will bring in will enhance the city, attract tourism, increase the tax base, create jobs and greatly improve the quality of life in Detroit. This is a much needed boost to the Detroit morale and

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