As leadership goes, the contrast couldn't have been more ignominious.
On Friday, federal officials stood with state leaders and talked loftily about a new forward-looking strategy to infuse $300 million in public and private assistance into Detroit in an effort to help eradicate blight, fight crime and improve the city's bus system.
A day earlier on the local level, Detroit Councilman James Tate was talking about goats.
As federal appointees like Gene Sperling discussed serious and proven ways to dredge up resources for a strapped city, the elected-but-largely-irrelevant Tate spent the days before eliciting snickers and blank stares with his passionate promotion of his plan for "prescribed grazing" —letting goats, sheep and other livestock trim the grass and weeds in the city's vacant lots in lieu of landscapers.
Urban Farming Across the Country
"Urban cities are doing this all across the country and having absolutely no issues, whatsoever," Tate said.
Allowing the animals into neighborhoods could require changes to the city's urban agriculture ordinance.
Detroit has thousands of vacant lots that it can't afford to mow regularly, causing widespread overgrowth.
"We can work on developing how we allow this to happen, not citywide, because what's good for one neighborhood is not necessarily good for others, but if a neighborhood is interested in allowing it to take place, I think we should not get in the way of what people want to do for their particular neighborhood," Tate said.
Podunk and Anacrhronistic?
Detroit Councilman James Tate
Now, in spite of the temptation to reject Tate's idea out of hand as podunk and anachronistic, I'm not one to dismiss an idea simply because it conjures images of Fred Flintstone cutting his grass with a dinosaur tied to a handcart.
But I do think that the idea should be presented honestly.
When Tate boasts of grazing programs going on in "urban cities" such as Chicago and Cleveland, he sounds as if these programs are widespread and proven effective. They aren't.
They're rare, extremely limited in scope, experimental and conducted exclusively on large city-owned properties such as the rolling acreage around Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
No responsible civic leader in Chicago or Cleveland -- or anywhere else, that I can see -- is braying about the need for municipal government to let goats and sheep maintain residential communities in an effort to "not get in the way of what people want to do for their particular neighborhood."
A Lone Outlier
Tate is a lone outlier with regard to the whole agri-anarchy thing, it seems.
Now, I realize that, with Rick Snyder having dictatorially usurped most of the power of local elected officials, Tate (who's running for a council seat in District 1) is among neutered leaders forced to find alternative ways of being heard.
And there's nothing wrong with thinking outside the box.
But in his hasty desire to rollback laws that frown upon large packs of farm animals roaming the empty tracts of land between city bungalows, this member of the city's legislative branch seems to have forgotten some of the practical reasons livestock ordinances exist in cities in the first place.
So let me remind the councilman that, first off, animals carry diseases. And diseases tend spread much faster in populated areas like Brightmoor, where the councilman seems to think his program should take flight.
Goats and Sheep Poop
Second, goats and sheep and llamas shit a lot. And while that may be good for the vacant lots they're chewing up, who wants to actually live in a neighborhood blanketed by the overpowering stench of sheep shit? Who would want to live next door to that lot? Who would want to play in that park?
And just because one neighbor is cool with the smell of llama dung wafting through her windows, who's to say what another neighbor would want? Who gets to determine "what people want to do for their particular neighborhood" in a city where elected leadership can't even cross the street without the governor's permission?
And then there's the cost.
While taking care of animals may be cheaper than maintaining lawn mowers and edgers, it's certainly not free. They need medical attention, shelter and other care. And while it may be cheaper than paying landscapers, goats don't pay taxes or buy homes or shop downtown or do any of the other things that human beings with paychecks do to stimulate an economy.
And what of the animals themselves? Is it really good for them to be crowded into city neighborhoods? Wouldn't goats likely have to be de-horned, a cruel and controversial practice, before being allowed to roam in residential spaces? And really, in a city filled with stray dogs and even the occasional big cat, how safe is it for the animals to wander about lots in even the most depopulated neighborhoods?
Finally, though I'm not necessarily against ideas like urban farming on select parcels, the notion of turning ordinary Detroit neighborhoods into stomping grounds for Old MacDonald's menagerie strikes me as just a little much for a city trying to recapture its urban vibrancy.
Serious people came through our city on Friday and offered some serious ideas about how to get Detroit upright again. If the best local leaders like Tate can come up with is swapping out landscapers for goats, then come Election Day, they're the ones who should be put out to pasture.
