year's event in September, the focus was on utilizing green spaces, with participants, among them Allen, architect Sou Fujimoto, chef Alice Waters, landscape architect Walter Hood, and vertical garden pioneer Patric Blanc, discussing different prospects and proposals, such as Blanc's idea of creating a series of vertical gardens amid the Dequindre Cut, a former railway turned public pathway.

Concepts like these can be key community builders."If Sou Fujimoto builds a teahouse downtown, or Patric Blanc creates an urban garden, it's bringing high art to Detroit and connecting the community," Schulak says.

As challenging as it can be developing on empty ground, figuring out how to utilize abandoned, blighted property can prove even more difficult. The roughly 40,000 foreclosed homes and abandoned commercial buildings in the city, many relics of whena very positive aspect. And it provides opportunity across the socioeconomic spectrum."

The Side Lots Program is just a part of Duggan's plan to deal with the city's raft of blighted, abandoned properties. A concentrated blight removal effort has destroyed more than 7,000 buildings in the last 18 months. Duggan has come under fire for the rising cost of the program (the average demo price has increased by 60 percent, from $10,000 to roughly $16,000 per house), as well as overpriced "set" bids for demolitions from construction firms and contractors. The recent high-profile departure of the DLBA's former chief Kevin Simowski, a friend of Duggan who was accused of coming to work drunk and stalking a co-worker, hasn't helped. But long-time activists have praised the administration's recent flurry of