Code for America Apps for Detroit challenge | Hacker News Reader

Code for America Apps for Detroit challenge

appsfordetroit.org

18 pointsrmason12 comments

Thanks for posting this. As someone who lives in the Detroit-metro area, Detroit certainly needs all the help it can get.

I've never been to Detroit, what's wrong with it? Is it as bad as the media makes it out to be? I hear of murders and vacant swaths of previously bustling areas. How much truth is there to this?

in one sense, not much - "detroit" as a catch-all for 'detroit metro area' (and in some cases "southeastern michigan") - that's generally fine. Economy is hurting, but suburbs are suburbs.

"Detroit" - the area within the technical city boundaries - it's decimated. It's not quite 100% gone - there are new pockets of activity springing up, but it's extremely depressing to see what's happened. Used to be home to close to 2 million people (IIRC), and now it's 700k, and most of those don't want to be there.

The "downtown" area - about 15 square blocks - is nice - then it becomes a wasteland for several miles until you hit the suburbs.

How much would it cost to buy up the whole blighted area and declare it a giant national park?

$50 million? Dunno...

There's been a lot of investment in 'downtown' over the last decade - new ballparks, office buildings, etc., so those alone would probably need more than the $50 million I mentioned, but if you exclude those...

I feel like that would be counterproductive- circling the (not bad) downtown with miles of undevelop-able land.

A giant national park that is likely filled with asbestos, lead, and god knows what other toxic substances they used to use in buildings back in the day. Tearing all these buildings down carries serious environmental risk.

Unfortunately, a lot of prime, undeveloped real estate is owned by aggressive squatters with enough money to make any such venture a living hell.

> undeveloped real estate is owned by aggressive squatters

Is this some unusual use of the word "squatter" of which I'm not aware, or are you using it wrong? Squatters tend not to be owners.

This City of Detroit is too big, geographically

It's highly dependent on what area of Detroit you're in. There are some parts of Detroit that are as the media portrays them: high crime/murder rate, abandoned buildings, and generally unpleasant areas. Additionally, the city government has had lots of issues with corruption. Currently the former mayor is being prosecuted by the FBI on a variety of charges. There's lots of problems that snowball into a not so nice living situation.

Some pictures of the worse areas: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089,00.htm...

Got a cool idea for a civic app? Outside developers wouldn't get a hearing much less a trial in other cities. Detroit is in such bad shape they're willing to take some risks and try things.

In Detroit you've got a great chance to see your app actually get put into production. It opens up opportunities for your code to make a real difference in peoples lives.

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