the solution is simple....remove all epa rules for these area’s....bulldoze houses, asbestos and all, into the basements of the homes...get prisoners, offer them time off from their sentences for work, have them tear up the streets, and dump said concrete into the basements also. Now, we have just had floods of historical proportions in the mississippi river basin. After the clean up, the soil has to be trucked somewhere....I wonder where it could go?
If Detroit isn't careful, they're going to shoot themselves in the foot on this. They need to excercise emminent domain, else if they just let squatters take over the land, after a decade (two at the most), whoever has been using the land has title lock stock and barrel.
On the other hand, if the title does transfer to the squatters they might be liable for whatever outstanding back taxes there may be from the former residences. I'm ignorant about the real-estate legalities. One thing certain, whomever does take title to the land will at the very least have additional property tax liability from that time forward.
In any case, with the projected urban sprawl over the next decade or two, eventually all those undeveloped acres of prairie (or woodland) will be a pretty ripe plumb for somebody's picking. Detroit is 143 mi2 of area. Suppose 1/2 of it goes feral?
Why would anybody want to move out to 40, 50 or even 60 mile road, when there's prime rural real-estate available smack in the middle of Metropolis?