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Deconstructing Detroit: Instead of demolition, city is urged to recycle (NAOMI R. PATTON, 9/19/10, Detroit FREE PRESS)

It was big news this spring when Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced that the city would demolish 3,000 vacant properties by the end of this year.

As of this month, officials say 1,575 city-owned properties have been either demolished or are under contract for demolition.

With far less fanfare, five city-owned abandoned houses in the Brightmoor neighborhood also came down this summer. They were not demolished, however, but rather deconstructed.

The houses have been taken apart -- mostly by hand -- by the Motor City Blight Busters with cooperation from the city. The plan is to salvage the materials to be reused, repurposed or recycled.

Dismantling a house is a slow, more expensive process compared with demolishing one, but it is a process that cities across the country are starting to embrace. [...]

Much of the material Blight Busters recovers, such as wood flooring and trim, cabinets, doors and repurposed 2-by-4s, end up in its Artist Village and in its soon-to-open Motor City Java House.

"You actually save money. You get more for less," George said.

Bob Falk, president of the Building Materials Reuse Association and research engineer at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis., said most people don't realize that municipalities spend millions annually on landfill disposal.

"Deconstruction can keep the money in the community when you hire people from the community. ... Millions of pounds of materials can be used in that community," said Falk, who has spent nearly 20 years working on recycling waste wood. "Deconstruction can be part of a community rebuilding effort."