The 15300 block of Linnhurst Street (between Hayes and Brock) is the site of heavy demolition activity these days – eight demolitions have been recorded via Motor City Mapping on the block as of last November.

In an environment that can be suspect of the intentions of demolition activity, demolition activity like this may provide evidence of a data driven policy from the City of Detroit focused on keeping Detroiters in the city. Here’s how you can tell.

Hayes Street serves as a stark dividing line in the Burbank neighborhood where the 15300 block of Linnhurst Street sits. To the west, the neighborhood is perhaps the site of the most dramatic neighborhood collapse in the city.

As you can see in the map above, few structures remain west of Hayes Street (white spaces between parcels are largely evidence of demolitions in years past) and nearly 50% of those still standing are vacant. The deterioration of this neighborhood can’t be overstated. Formerly the most violent area of Detroit, crime rates have been dropping (and touted in the media) but that’s largely because people have left in such high numbers.

To the east of Hayes, we see the neighborhood containing the 15300 block of Linnhurst. At a glance, it looks much more stable – high density housing, and largely occupied. Vacancy does appear to be creeping in towards the north of the area, however.

So how can one tell that the profound collapse to the west is bound to infect the seemingly more stable area east of Hayes?

The answer, as ever, as always: Tax foreclosure. Take a look at West Burbank’s tax foreclosure numbers above.

As you can see, of ~3,900 properties in the area, over 1,600 are listed as “Tax Exempt” while another 1,400 are in various stages of tax foreclosure. That means 3,000 of 3,900 properties in West Burbank are affected by tax foreclosure – 77%.

The 1,600 that are tax exempt are properties that went to the foreclosure auction and failed to sell to anyone for $500 a piece – they are now owned by the City of Detroit.

Imagine what it takes for a neighborhood to be so afflicted, so severely deteriorated, that, at $500 per property, investors, speculators, heck, anyone at all, says “No thanks” to 40% of the properties in the area. That’s what happened in West Burbank.

Now, look to East Burbank, across Hayes, where 15300 Linnhurst sits.

What you’re seeing is a neighborhood at an early stage in the tax foreclosure pipeline. It has not reached the devastation of West Burbank, but, absent intervention, it’s on the way.

Foreclosure numbers here are still very high – 60% of properties are affected by tax foreclosure – but only 10% have gone unsold in foreclosure auctions (89 of 938 properties) – the worst fate a property can encounter.

If you’re performing demolition in this area – far from downtown, adjacent to one of the city’s most distressed neighborhoods – you’re doing it for one reason: To give people a reason to pay their taxes, and stay in their homes.

There’s simply no other reason to bother with demolition out there. The real estate value isn’t high, there’s no strategic value to the area… It’s for the people in the neighborhood.

The theory is predicated on work done in Cleveland that showed that spending money on demolition will actually encourage people adjacent to the demolished property to start paying their mortgages again. This is the work that unlocked hundreds of millions of Hardest Hit Fund dollars for demolition activity in Michigan.

Far from any notion of 1950’s era strategic “blighting” this is precisely how demolition should be pursued. There are still systemic issues underlying all of this that cannot be addressed by demolition, of course. First among them is taking on tax foreclosure itself – absent that you’ll just be demolishing forever because foreclosure is the engine that produces most of the city’s vacancy.

But where demolition is going to be employed as an option in the toolkit, this is how it should be used.