There have been mixed reactions to a proposal to turn 170 acres (69 Hectares) of Detroit into a privately owned 'urban farm' and woodland. The controversial urban renewal project has been called the 'largest urban farm in the world'.

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After the sale of 150 acres for the private urban farm was approved on Sunday (24th November) by Michigan State governor Rick Snyder, work is expected to commence on the Hantz Farms project over winter. The project will see a swathe of Detroit's east side transformed into a 'hardwood tree farm'. The proposal was passed with the narrowest of margins by the City Council last year and will involve the removal of 50 empty buildings.  

According to the UN, in 2050 80 percent of the world's population will live in towns and cities, by this time the planet's population is expected to be 9 billion. Many believe that more holistic urban planning is needed to produce food in the towns and cities where people live and eat. Advocates of urban agriculture argue that bringing food production into towns can protect the environment by reducing the land needed for farming, growing on top of buildings and in indoor 'vertical farms', whilst providing more affordable healthy food and building communities with a reduced ecological footprint, made possible through cutting transport costs and direct selling.  

Jobs have disappeared from Detroit and the city's shrinking population is swamped with an estimated 80,000 buildings in the city standing empty. Supporters of the development claim the move will stop the downward trajectory of the city's fortunes and end the depreciation in value afflicting the East Side. According to Hantz Farms president Michael Score, the team has already received interest from businesses in other states.

The Hantz project on Detroit's lower east side will "weave through existing neighbourhoods," according to Score, who said neighbours were offered first refusal on lots bought by the company. Tree planting on the initial package of land bought by Holtz Woodlands began in June this year.

The project is an investment by Detroit resident and business personality John Hantz, though not one that is expected to pay off for years or even decades. Even so, once the planted trees have begun to grow, the developers say they hope to plant crops and even raise livestock on the land, which they assure will not be fenced in, allowing members of the community to walk around.

Earlier in the year, Hantz Farms president Score said, "We are thrilled with what we have seen in the neighbourhoods we are working in. The blocks where we have cleared and are maintaining the lots have led to our neighbours making their own improvements, block by block."

Score claimed to know by name most of the neighbours on the 165 parcels of land on which the Hantz project began its work earlier this year. He continued, "This is precisely the type of transformation we had hoped for when we made a significant investment in the lower east side. Ultimately, this was an investment in safer, more livable neighborhoods. We're excited to continue the work we've started."

However, the intervention of outside investors, tearing down vacant homes and planting trees on the lots has divided the community. Some support the move, which they believe will revive the area, though others have speculated that Hantz's project could amount to a land grab that will see private companies moving in and developing the East side in the future, out-pricing its current occupants and smaller urban agriculture projects.

Hantz is not the alone in seeking to rejuvenate Detroit's derelicts and vacant lots. Hamtown Farms in Hamtramck on the outskirts of Detroit, has already created a thriving urban farm on rented land, though its future is far from secure; the farm's managers are trapped in a bidding war with a private company for the five lots they rent from the City authorities.  

The Detroit Black Community Food Service also runs an urban agriculture project in the city, and the group has opposed Hantz's scheme. Many feel that smaller projects such as these offer more for the local population than a larger one, imposed on the community and run by a private company. Score, on the other hand, claimed that the larger project, made possible by the injection of capital by Hantz, will create much needed jobs in the area.  

Even so, Nevin Cohen, Professor of Environment Studies at New York's New School, said Hantz Farms' investment will do nothing for Detroit's east side because it does not issues of race and class, which he said are more in need of attention than the promise of urban farmland in the area.  In a scathing statement to Fox News he averred, "Replicating a community farm is not as important as addressing issues of race and class concerns which underlie Detroit's problems."