U.S. News: Cost-Cutting Detroit Will Close 77 Parks
DETROIT -- The city of Detroit plans to close 77 public parks as part of a bid by Mayor Dave Bing to cuts costs due to a budget deficit pegged at hundreds of millions of dollars.</br></br>Roughly 1,400 acres of parkland will be affected by the closures, which are scheduled to take place July 1.</br></br>"Basically, this was how can we close the lowest number of places," said Dan Lijana, spokesman for the mayor. "Some of these are the largest, most sprawling parks in the city, and some of the most scenic."</br></br>Mr. Bing pledged more fiscal responsibility when he took office in May 2009, and has been pushing for cuts citywide to stave off financial insolvency. He has won concessions from just over half the city's public-sector unions but he hasn't seen eye-to-eye with the city council, which has pushed for even deeper cuts than he is proposing.</br></br>Detroit has closed dozens of schools in recent years and cut back on other city services, such as busing, as the city as a whole has begun to respond to a decline in population that has left whole blocks and neighborhoods sparsely populated.