“What strikes me most is the size and scale of abandonment in Detroit. There were more [footpaths] than I expected,” Newell said.

Essential tool or poverty porn?

The study comes as Detroit officials are exploring creative uses for vacant land, which comprises 17 percent of the city whose population has plunged by more than 1 million since 1950, according to Data Driven Detroit, a research firm.

Viewed for years as a scourge, fallow property is treated as an asset nowadays by City Hall, from assembling 200 acres for the $1.7 billion Fiat Chrysler plant expansion on the east side to plans for a 31-mile Joe Louis Greenway biking and hiking path around the city.

Newell said his study – which he believes is the first of its kind in a big city – could be a key tool in that planning, because the paths document “where residents vote with their feet,” particularly in poorer neighborhoods.

“We’ve got an issue in Detroit – what are we going to do with all this vacant land, and this study is definitely part of the puzzle,” said Newell, who partnered on the study with Alec Foster, a geology professor at Illinois State University.

“As we think about redevelopment we could use this to improve the welfare [of people] in such a car-centric culture.”

On the east side, some lost trails were due to the creation of Hantz Woodlands, a controversial tree farm created when Detroit sold some 2,000 vacant lots at bargain prices in 2013 to a developer.

Newell called the disappearance of paths a “lost opportunity” to create communal spaces and a matter of social justice since so many are in poor areas of the city.

“These paths are the neighborhoods expressing their desire for how the land should be used by walking across it,” Newell said.

Nonsense, said Donna Givens, CEO of the Eastside Community Network, a development group whose neighborhood was studied.

A former member of her nonprofit assisted with the study, which Givens called the study “patronizing.” She contended it glorifies footpaths typically used by poor people with few other transportation options. The study likens the paths somewhat reverentially to Native American trails that later grew into modern highways.

“This is sort of a nostalgic, poverty porn exercise,” said Givens, who read the report at the request of Bridge Magazine.

“When I talk to people about vacancy, they speak to the loss of housing, loss of economic value and loss of safety. They’re not talking about foot paths. No one would mourn the loss of desire lines in Birmingham,” an affluent suburb.

A sign of progress?

Vacant land is hugely emotional in Detroit because it’s connected to so many city problems, from crime to foreclosure. But also because of what preceded it: occupied homes.

In the past 15 years, more than 100,000 houses have been foreclosed, leading to roughly 30,000 demolitions. The decline in homeownership created a host of problems, from vacant homes being converted to drug dens, to schoolchildren walking past open, dilapidated eyesores.

The disappearance of footpaths may not be a negative, said Megan Owens, executive director of Transportation Riders United, a metro Detroit nonprofit that advocates for public transit improvements.

“There are pluses and minuses in every aspect of redevelopment,” she said. “Sure, some people may need to walk a little further, but if that’s because we now have more productive use of the land, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

The study follows other research about the negative impact of vacant land, and citywide efforts to improve safety around it or sell foreclosed property.