DETROIT, MI — For some in Delray, a new government-owned bridge can't come fast enough.

And if the price is right, they'll gladly pack up and leave the gritty, industrial Detroit neighborhood that is expected to play host to the New International Trade Crossing.

"I would have to move, but there's nothing left, so it doesn't matter," said Cherey Anderson, who lives with her two daughters, a son and four grandchildren in a small house in the path of the planned bridge.

"I've been in this neighborhood about twenty seven years. All the houses are gone. There's more vacant land than anything else. You've even got wildlife around here. We've had foxes, pheasants and some other thing running around here that looks like a big old rat but it's not."

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday announced an agreement to partner on the construction and operation of the NITC, a $2.1 billion bridge project that will connect Delray to the Brighton Beach area in Windsor.

The state is expected to use its power of eminent domain to buy out Anderson and other owners whose property lies in the footprint of the bridge and an interchange that will connect I-75.

One of those owners is Ambassador Bridge tycoon Matty Moroun, who purchased the Yellow Freight truck terminal in Delray in 2010 and is expected to fight any attempts to buy his land or allow a ramp to pass over it.

Others, such as long-time resident Johnny Smith, are resigned to the fact they may have to move but aren't happy about it.

"Do I have a choice?" Smith asked after setting up a sprinkler outside the house he bought in 1970. "If I got a choice, I ain't going nowhere. I ain't going back into debt again, that's for sure. I ain't owe a dime on nothing you see here."

Largely forgotten by time, Delray once boasted a population of more than 20,000 residents but, as of the 2010 Census, is now home to only 2,783 people. The local riverfront is dominated by heavy-polluting industries, while abandoned factories and vacant lots divide most residential spaces.

Those who do plan to stay -- whose property does not lie within the expected path of the new bridge -- are asking that the government doesn't forget them. Mary Loubriel, a member of the Community Benefits Coalition, wants the bridge project to include streetlights, sidewalks, environmental mitigation and jobs for the local community.

"If this bridge is going to be built, we believe that being the host community, we deserve benefits, and that's what we're fighting for," said Loubriel. "Just protection for the people of Delray against anything that this bridge could bring, including truck traffic."

As signed Friday, the bridge agreement does not include a specific benefits package for Delray. Instead, it requires private companies who will bid on the project to submit a community benefits plan as part of their proposal.

State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who fought to include community benefits in bridge-enabling legislation that stalled last year, is calling on the City of Detroit to refrain from selling a portion of its land that will be used for the project until local protections are guaranteed.

"If this new crossing is good for our state, then it also needs to be good for the residents who will live next to it," Tlaib said Friday in a released statement. "The host community is primarily made up of poor and minority families and they deserve all the protections and safeguards that any other community would ask for.

"Our community has been neglected for decades and to drop another infrastructure project in the middle of this poor, minority community is, frankly, a human rights violation."