Shrinking budgets haven't stopped communities in Metro Detroit from fighting the war on blight.
Despite steep cuts, hiring freezes and spiraling deficits, communities are boosting curb appeal by sprucing up landscaping and adding shrubs, flowers, brick pavers and fancy street lights.
They say it's a necessary expense – if they want to attract more residents and businesses – because revenue sharing cuts earlier this year slashed municipal budgets by 3.5 percent to 5 percent.
"The bottom line is property values," said Sterling Heights City Manager Steve Duchane. "If the community is looked at as desirable, it increases the property values and tax base. Property values are essential in every community, and if you let (things) go downhill, that takes property values away."
Improvements include upgrades at Hines Park in western Wayne County, where a gazebo and recreation area are being built and bridges are being repaired; sidewalk repairs in Warren; and more than $600,000 in new shrubs, trees and plants along Greenfield and Nine Mile in Southfield.
The tab can be steep, though: Sterling Heights spends $500,000 a year on mulch, fertilizer and pruning and planting grass, shrubs and flowers on city, state and county roadsides, boulevards and medians.
It's worth every penny, said Guy Kebbe, director of the Sterling Heights Department of Public Works. The city is reimbursed for improvements on county and state roads by Macomb County and the Michigan Department of Transportation.
"Our residents expect the boulevard and medians to look good, and we want them to look nice," Kebbe said. "We don't just want a bunch of weeds. We want it to be a hardy turf that looks nice.
How well communities are maintained can have long-lasting effects, said Mike Whitty, director of the Institute for Building Sustainable Communities at the University of Detroit Mercy. More than esthetics, it's about dollars and cents.
"We are all stakeholders," Whitty said. "We are not isolated. How the community looks affects everyone's quality of life ... from people in Detroit to people in the suburbs."
But recent budget cuts have forced communities to become more creative.
Dearborn Heights has stepped up efforts to apply for grants to help fund esthetic improvements. And Sterling Heights used federal grants to help pay for extensive landscaping along Van Dyke, Schoenherr, Mound and Metropolitan Parkway.
"Grants are harder to come by now, but we try to put together as many sources of funding as we can," said Christopher Klimchalk, a grants coordinator in Dearborn Heights.
The city recently used a $1.2 million federal grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to add lights, street signs, decorative brick curbs and "respite" areas, with black metal benches and landscaping, on Warren Avenue between Telegraph and Beech Daly.
The author, Tenisha Mercer, can be reached at tmercer@detnews.com.