If you asked me what to do with Detroit, my suggestion would probably be to hide funny and/or surprising objects in the rubble, so that future archeologists will get a chuckle while they excavate. I would definitely not have thought of turning it into an enormous urban farm for the same reason I would not like to discover that my girlfriend is washing our dishes in the toilet.

Picture this: you go to the grocery store and buy a bag of organic carrots.You go home and peel them, then dip one into the creamy dressing of your choice.The carrot snaps reassuringly, your teeth cutting through its fibrous mass.As you anticipate the carroty sweetness, you taste… despair, failure, mercury, and, faintly, just a hint of Jimmy Hoffa. Covered in Ranch dressing. Welcome to the wonderful world of Detroit, a culinary experience you won’t soon forget… no matter how much you wish you could.

Now, I’m not a “foodie.”  I don’t particularly care about organic food production standards or anything like that. I’m also not much of an environmentalist, so, while I do not specifically advocate pollution, a few PCB’s here or there are not going to give me nightmares. Still, I’m not going to be chowing down on any of that stuff.  There are reasons why food is produced way out in the middle of nowhere: we deflower virgin wilderness for farming so we don’t get lead poisoning; we farm out in the sticks because cost-effective food production needs lots of land; we farm where we don’t have to see farms because most of us don’t want to see cows shot in the skull, and those of us that do live on farms so we can.

There are 11 Superfund sites in Wayne and surrounding counties (the Detroit area).  A designated Superfund site is supposed to be cleaned up by the people who made the mess, sort of a “your mother doesn’t work here” school of governance. However, expecting the people who made the messes in and around Detroit to clean them up is like handing a mop and bucket to a suicide and asking them to scrub the brains off the walls. So that’s out, which means the Superfund trust fund needs to pay for cleanup. But, oh, poop, according to my good friend wikipedia, the Superfund trust fund was exhausted in 2003. So, you know, I guess nobody’s going to clean it up.

I don’t buy organic food. I’m not sure if legacy Union labor pollutants are okay even if Alar and hormones are not. I think I would probably have to ask Rod Dreher or somebody like that. You would think they would be more concerned about the “psychic pollutants” produce grown in an urban wasteland would contain. But if something like this happens, I’ll picture an earnest organic food consumer lovingly examining a strawberry and saying, “This Detroit strawberry looks perfect, but its soul is bruised. You can just taste the angst.”

Tweet  Print This Post

Tags: environment & nature, politics & government // Add Comment »