Detroit – the New Trantor
Isn’t this what the remaining denizens of Trantor did after the collapse of the empire in the original “Foundation” trilogy?
[O]ne day about a year and a half ago, [investment manager John Hantz] had a revelation. “We need scarcity,” he thought to himself as he drove past block after unoccupied block. “We can’t create opportunities, but we can create scarcity.” And that, he says one afternoon in his living room between puffs on an expensive cigar, “is how I got onto this idea of the farm.”
Yes, a farm. A large-scale, for-profit agricultural enterprise, wholly contained within the city limits of Detroit. Hantz thinksfarming could do his city a lot of good: restore big chunks of tax-delinquent, resource-draining urban blight to pastoral productivity; provide decent jobs with benefits; supply local markets and restaurants with fresh produce; attract tourists from all over the world; and — most important of all — stimulate development around the edges as the local land market tilts from stultifying abundance to something more like scarcity and investors move in. Hantz is willing to commit $30 million to the project. He’ll start with a pilot program this spring involving up to 50 acres on Detroit’s east side. “Out of the gates,” he says, “it’ll be the largest urban farm in the world.”
The original article at CNN Money features a graphic that shows these urban farms won’t just be rows of crops, oh nosirree…they’ll be something special…something cutting edge…like a cross between an O’Neill colony and a baseball stadium:
To increase the odds that they will, Hantz plans on making his farms both visually stunning and technologically cutting edge. Where there are row crops, Hantz says, they’ll be neatly organized, planted in “dead-straight lines — they may even be in a design.” But the plan isn’t to make Detroit look like Iowa. “Don’t think a farm with tractors,” says Hantz. “That’s old.”
In fact, Hantz’s operation will bear little resemblance to a traditional farm. Mike Score, who recently left Michigan State’s agricultural extension program to join Hantz Farms as president, has written a business plan that calls for the deployment of the latest in farm technology, from compost-heated greenhouses to hydroponic (water only, no soil) and aeroponic (air only) growing systems designed to maximize productivity in cramped settings. [emphasis mine]
He’s really excited about apples. Hantz Farms will use a trellised system that’s compact, highly efficient, and tourist-friendly. It won’t be like apple picking in Massachusetts, and that’s the point. Score wants visitors to Hantz Farms to see that agriculture is not just something that takes place in the countryside. They will be able to “walk down the row pushing a baby stroller,” he promises.
Which all sounds pretty silly to me, an unnecessarily capital-intensive way to accomplish the stated goal of making the land productive through agriculture – and a ridiculous exercise in subsidy seeking, as Dan notes. But on the other hand, this is not unlike what will be needed for farms on the Moon and Mars, so even if it fails (as, being in Detroit, it is foredoomed to do), it may be a valuable learning experience for future space settlement efforts.
