Impoverishing Everyone to Save Gaia

Brandon J. Weichert • 

Welcome to your ecochondriacal future, Detroit.

Detroit is a city that has been wasted by the ravages of globalization. Once the hub of the world's automotive industry, by the late twentieth century, much of America's manufacturing industry had been shipped overseas. By the time of the Great Recession of 2008, Detroit was on the front lines of economic devastation of that crisis. Today, Detroit is a shadow of its past glory.

Yes, it has still recovered somewhat from the lows of a decade ago; after all, there was no way to go but up. That, however, won't stop the extreme environmentalist lobby of the Democratic Party-- the Ecochondriacs who believe we must sacrifice ourselves to save hallowed Mother Earth -- from trying to destroy whatever is left of the once great Motor City. Detroit's mayor, Mike Duggan, believes that now was the time for his ailing city to make a new name for itself by becoming one of America's major cities to transition from purportedly "dirty" fossil fuel-produced energy to "clean" green energy. In this case, solar power.

All aboard to nowhere!

Accordingly, he's  initiated a race of sorts among some of Detroit's most populated neighborhoods to see which of them will become home to massive solar power arrays. Motown is looking at nine neighborhoods, from which it will need at least six participants in this alternative energy experiment. These neighborhoods will be tasked with assembling 250 acres of unused or, more likely, underutilized land to offset the electrical demands of public buildings in Detroit. In essence, Duggan wants to take private land in poor neighborhoods of Detroit and repurpose them to support the massive power demands of Detroit's 127 municipal buildings.

The greater question is just who would decide which parcels of land are being unused or underutilized? And that's where much of the controversy is derived from. After all, the land would be redistributed from privately owned hands to the Detroit city government's hands... with the Detroit city government making those determinations. It would then be used to house massive solar arrays known as "solar fields." For Duggan's plan to work, however, the city government will have to repossess land on which stand large apartment complexes housing the poor. While the Duggan administration insists the program is voluntary, his own spokesmen have hinted that they will use eminent domain laws to forcibly acquire privately held property they deem necessary to support their ambitious Green Energy transition for the Motor City should the targeted neighborhoods prove intransigent.

In the case of Mount Olivet, where Mayor Duggan wants to try his solar field program, there is a 21-acre stretch of land that has 16 rental properties that are occupied by renters, with an additional seven owner-occupied homes. The threat of force is embedded within Mayor Duggan's "voluntary" transition of Detroit from hollowed-out capitalism into a No-Man's Land of the environmentalist lobby. The Detroit city government is requiring those nine neighborhoods to demonstrate that they can corral the land needed for a potential solar panel field by indicating that the residents living on the land for the solar panel fields are willing to move out. The deadline is January 31.

A greener world awaits!

How much do you want to bet that if the neighborhoods in question fail to prove that they have enough volunteers who will give up their homes to Mayor Duggan that the Duggan administration will simply make good on its threat to use eminent domain to kick Detroit's lower income people out of their homes?

What's more, concerns abound among property owners in the city that the solar panel fields will only lower their property values, making resale of their property in a city already drowning in economic crisis, that much harder for them. Property values in states that have enacted similar policies have dropped an average of 1.5 percent after solar panel fields were installed nearby.

Behold the crony capitalism that has come to define the Green industry. The Duggan plan includes massive forced evictions of the city's working poor and the subsequent devaluation of private property: elected officials abusing their power to harm some of their most vulnerable constituents. Why would any politician, who survives on votes every election cycle, do this? Who's to say that after they repossess the land and build these solar panel fields, the entire solar industry doesn't go belly-up, leading to the selling of that land to developers? At root, the Duggan administration is harming its poorest constituents in the name of saving the planet.

Source: The Pipeline