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New government figures show that 5.9% of all Japanese homes are abandoned, while 13.88% of homes are vacant (a total of 9 million homes). The issue is predominantly impacting the country's rural areas, while the number of vacant and abandoned apartments and condo units is also increasing. Several... View full entry
A new plan Mayor Mike Duggan is pitching would fill vacant land in the city, provide clean energy for the city, and give money back to community groups. After some consultation with solar companies, the plans should start to take shape this fall.
Starting July 1, neighborhood groups will be able to submit a community interest form. If they need assistance with the proposal, they can request help from a solar energy expert.
— Urbanize Detroit
The plan puts the Motor City squarely in line with Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, and New York, whose attempt to power 250,000 homes by 2030 is still lagging. France also just commenced its own plan targeted at parking lots in the country at the beginning of the month, despite... View full entry
The Chicago Architecture Biennial is returning this September under the 2021 edition banner, The Available City. This morning, Artistic Director David Brown unveiled an initial list of 29 contributors from Chicago and around the world to collaborate with local community groups to examine forms of... View full entry
Now comes encouraging news of a Detroit program to take abandoned homes which can be saved into a land bank and then auction them off. The program is coupled with forgivable loans for repairs. — CNU
Detrroit is auctioning off vacant homes to "people who commit to fix them up and live in them." The implementation has supported Detroit's growing identity as a financially feasible place to "make a start with a home and a business." View full entry
Detroit natives can recall the neighborhood of Fitzgerald and its transition from a lively community to a vacant and foreclosed part of town. Today, the neighborhood is poised for change again, as landscape architects Spackman Mossop Michaels (SSM) work to help revitalize the community... View full entry
This is high-rent blight.
The vacancy problem is immediately visible but lacking in hard data. The intent of this project is to provide some background around commercial vacancies and use a map to give some insight into the extent of the issue, ideally doubling as a tool for community groups and policymakers to identify areas for intervention.
It's an obvious problem without a clear set of causes or solutions, but there are several contributing factors [...]
— vacantnewyork.com
Click here for the interactive VACANT NEW YORK map.Related stories in the Archinect news:New map tool reveals NYC's vacant lots zoned for revitalizationA New Mapping Tool Lets NYC Residents Peek Into Developers' PlansNew York City's tree species mapped View full entry
This project [titled 'Projection'], announced last October, is probably the first time in a long time that the old inn (aka the Sunset Pacific) has gotten so much attention. The Bates—whose nickname is as much a callback to 'Psycho' as it is to the motel's location near the intersection of Bates and Sunset—has been vacant for decades, except for the squatters and the occasional, totally fun-looking, likely illegal party — la.curbed.com
Artist Vincent Lamouroux went all out in covering Silver Lake's Bates Motel in stark white limewash for his piece titled, Projection, which officially opens on April 26. As of now, the derelict landmark will eventually be razed to make room for three mixed-users. View full entry
Due to plummeting enrollment and a troubled district, vacant school buildings—heck, just vacant buildings—are none too rare in Detroit. After 19 years of abandonment, the Nellie Leland School, however, is no longer vacant—it, as abandoned urban buildings are want to do, is back in session as condos. [...]
Today, the school is known as Leland Lofts, a set of expansive condos in the Lafayette Park neighborhood near downtown Detroit, where a 1,465-square-foot, one-bedroom loft goes for $175K.
— curbed.com
