Mike duggan detroit demolition

Mayor Mike Duggan cast the future of demolitions in Detroit in the starkest terms Wednesday: Approve $250 million in bonds or live with blight.

"The people of the city have a choice; if you think the quality of the neighborhoods is fine and this is OK long term, then we don’t need to do this," he said during a news briefing at Detroit Public Safety Headquarters.

"If you believe, as I believe, that we’ve raised enough generations of children in this city going by these blighted houses and it’s time to say to every child: 'You deserve to live in a blight-free neighborhood,' I hope they’ll consider doing that."

Duggan, who has used hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds to demolish 21,000 abandoned buildings, said the city is out of money to knock down or rehabilitate the remaining 22,000 vacant buildings in Detroit.

"There is no other demolition money," he said.

"We had built up some reser