October 30, 2015
The Detroit Future City (DFC) Implementation Office was one of several Detroit-based partners that participated in a recent German Marshall Fund (GMF) research trip through the Ruhr Valley, Germany and Amsterdam, Netherlands. The five-day initiative, from October 18 to 22, examined how former industrial sites and facilities are being adaptively reutilized.
Detroit has over 6.1 square miles of vacant industrial sites and facilities. This initiative is intended to inform Detroit project leaders and officials about the means, methods, and rationales that could influence a wide-range of projects in these areas. This includes –financing, partnerships, and policies that drove them, and design strategies that brought them to life.
“This experience illustrates how large-scale mining sites, steel facilities and iron foundries can not only be reutilized, but can also be transformed into competitive assets celebrating culture, supporting economic development, and creating a new narrative for their city. These are long-term efforts, but there are catalytic efforts we can and must advance now. It will continue to be an important part of our body of work at DFC,” said Dan Kinkead, DFC’s acting executive director.