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Tagged: vacancy

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Detroit
2:02 pm
Sun April 22, 2012

Detroit fire boss: Let vacant buildings burn down

Credit (photo by Steve Carmody/Michigan Radio)
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DETROIT (AP) — Detroit's fire boss suggests his department could adjust to a looming 15 percent budget cut by letting some abandoned buildings burn to the ground and using firefighters and even Navy Seabees to demolish vacant structures.

Executive Fire Commissioner Donald Austin says he's creating three proposals for Mayor Dave Bing to consider in making deep reductions from the current budget year's $183 million spending plan.

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Changing Gears
12:29 pm
Wed November 9, 2011

Empty Series: In Detroit, it's not squatting … it's blotting (Part 2)

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Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
Paula Besheers and her son Paul Browne tried in vain to buy the empty lot right next door.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
"Blotters" are turning Detroit's empty spaces into family compounds.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
The family home.
Credit Kate Davidson / Changing Gears
Across the street.
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We’re looking at the challenges of the region’s empty places this month.

For many people, the most threatening emptiness isn’t a shuttered factory.  It’s the abandoned property next door.  But in Detroit, some residents are using that emptiness to quietly reshape their neighborhoods.

They’re annexing vacant lots around them, buying them when they can or just putting up a fence.

They’re not squatters … they’re blotters.

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