Detroit plans to harness solar power on vacant lots throughout the city

DETROIT — Patricia Kobylski remembers when there were lots of people living in her eastside Detroit neighborhood. “I’m confident our $1.1 million-a-year investment in these long-forgotten neighborhoods will produce a real recovery in these communities.” The city touts its Solar Neighborhoods project as a national model for finding solutions to climate change. That’s a really unique way of thinking.” “On more developed land, places that aren’t green field right now, solar is sometimes perceived as a negative change to the landscape,” Mills continued. “The challenge with solar is that it’s an industrial investment,” said Anika Goss, chief executive of Detroit Future City, a nonprofit focused on improving the lives of the city’s residents through community and economic development. Since the panels absorb energy from the sun, they can also create heat islands — or parts of cities with higher average temperatures than the surrounding areas — “in places that might already have challenges with heat islands.” Goss also said she is disappointed that the energy produced by the solar arrays will not be used to lower utility bills for residents in the selected neighborhoods.