Urban farming in Detroit is not a new idea, indeed it's been gathering strength with the locavore-organic-new-hippy movement. There are little plots dotting the city now. If these people were normal they'd just call it "gardening" but since they need attention they have a catch phrase and websites all about it. That's fine. What's not fine, annoying even, is when people who've obviously never been to Detroit and have no context about it make glib slams against it as a "failed city" and advocate the wholesale demolition of the city to turn it into farmland, which somehow constitutes the "Idea of the Day."

A little known fact about me is that I spent the better part of my youth on a farm in Indiana. The last time I was home I helped my Dad repair the largest tractor in our fleet. Occasionally I'll go home to help with planting, so I have some level of expertise on the subject of farming. The idea of turning vast tracts of urban land into farmland is... how shall I put this, painfully idiotic, and only betrays the ignorance of the Times on the subject.

Let's pretend for a moment the city of Detroit wasn't currently running enormous deficits and had money to buy entire neighborhoods to turn into farmland; alternately they somehow completely abandoned the idea of private property and just took it; continue pretending the residents wouldn't fight the demolition of their neighborhoods; let's just say for the sake of argument the government (which has shown nothing but competence in large scale organization) has the land, complete with all the housing and infrastructure in place.

Farming is a razor-thin margin kind of business. You don't make money by farming tiny plots of land, you need huge, uninterrupted tracts of land to efficiently operate machinery. You also need clean land. I'm sitting here laughing at the idea of pretending to plant in the city, even if it were bulldozed at enormous expense and all of the housing material refuse put into landfills at enormous expense, putting a chisel plough into urban dirt would be a nightmare. Every ten feet you'd have to stop to untangle the equipment from underground electrical, plumbing, sewerage and general what have you. More likely than not you'd just constantly destroy everything. Planting would never work as the delicate planter would be wrecked, not to mention you'd be putting perfectly good seed into often polluted ground. Remember, we're pretending all of the expensive roadways, parking lots, driveways and all manner of concrete has been removed. While we're pointing out how large scale urban farming is ridiculous, might as well mention the pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that would never be approved for use anywhere within a city.

We could go on about about how this "Idea of the Day" is embarrassing from the farming angle, but almost as sad is the base assumption of Detroit as a "failed city," a "nightmare town" as the Times puts it. Saturday I went to Eastern Market, the city's hundred fifty year old farmer's market and picked up groceries, had breakfast and read the news. Sunday, my girlfriend and I put our bicycles in the car, put the dog on a leash and drove from the nearby suburbs into the city to go riding. We drove up and down the Dequindre Cut, in the past a major rail line running to the water, abandoned during the population and business exodus, formerly the home of gangs and drugs but recently opened as an urban bike and walk path. We drove around downtown for hours, rode along the recently opened river walk which was quite full of people enjoying the last of the sunny warm days of the year. We drove around downtown to check out a new Cuban themed martini and cigar bar, and drove through Hart plaza, where kids were skateboarding and doing bike tricks. The bottom line is this isn't a failed city. It's a city on the way out of the abyss, if just barely. The economic maelstrom the country's in right now isn't helping things, neither are the woes in the US auto industry, but it's not the apocalypse here. Pictures of crumbling buildings and closed factories are sexy, and we're as guilty as the rest in promoting them, but more often than not when your turn the camera around you see a city clawing its way out of the mud.

Is Detroit the nicest city in the world? By no means. The city government is in a continual state of paralysis and corruption, taxes on decent property is painfully high and insurance rates are seriously eye-watering. Crime is certainly still around, but it's below the surface now, nowhere near historic levels. There are certainly many places those unfamiliar with the city should not go. South Detroit is a scary place at night. The neighborhood around City Airport would probably make most softened Americans pee their pants. There are a lot of abandoned and broken-down, burnt-out places. I go to these places because I'm curious. I've lived in the metropolitan area for over a decade, and in that time I've gone from a naive farm boy to a naive auto journalist, but I've watched Detroit get better. Much better. I spend as much time as I can in Detroit not because of a morbid curiosity but because it isn't the varnished over, pretend perfect suburbs. It's honest and interesting.

But whatever. Since it's apparently okay to destroy things that might not be running at full tilt, maybe a little frayed around the edges, perhaps for want of better times, we're assuming it'll be cool to make the argument the NYTimes offices would look great as a PetSmart. [NY Times]

So even if you don't read it for that — or for Wert being used in comparison to Steve "Chooch" Rattner — you should read it for Micki Maynard and Michael J. de la Merced's walk-through and re-cap of the past few months. That, in and of itself, is worth it. But we' just read it for the pictures anyway. [NYT]

The Ethicist asks "instead of selling this massive, ecologically destructive gas guzzler, should G.M. have it sent to the scrap heap?" Hmm, it must be nice to be making such arguments working for a company that prints things on ecologically destructive paper. [Ethicist]

Photo Credit: Scott Olson / Getty Images

Coming just a day after we used it ourselves on the air at CNBC, our little turn-o-phrase is making itself known in other media outlets. Our little term-of-the-day made it's way into an article on the front page of the 'ol gray lady, in addition to a quick quip-of-a-quote from yours truly in Micki Maynard's piece today discussing Chrysler's leaked future product plans.

But we're not the only outlets. It seems our friends at Slate have given us a hat tip as well. Just remember where you read it first, faithful readers. In the meantime, head over to the NYT and Slate to see it in the bright and glitzy lights. Pretty soon everyone'll be using it and then it'll be on American Apparel t-shirts and SNL sketches. Oh well, that's the price of celebrity, ain't it?

All we know is, we're pleased as punch to see the word "carpocalypse" written anywhere.

Where it wasn't written was over on Motor Trend, but that's a piece of a different sort. As usual, Todd Lassa hits the nail on the head. Well, except for that whole "looking" irreverent. We're totally irreverent. We swear. [NYT, Slate, Motor Trend]

While New York Slept

By FRIEDMAN L. THOMAS
Published: December 11, 2008

As I think about our bailing out New York, I can’t help but reflect on what, in my view, is the most important rule of markets in today’s integrated and digitized global market, where knowledge and innovation tools are so widely distributed. It’s this: Whatever can be sold in markets, will be sold in markets. The only question is will it be sold by you or sold to you. Just don’t think it won’t be sold. If you have an innovative market derivative in New York or Tennessee, promise me that you’ll market it, because someone in Nigeria or Somalia will do so a second later.

Why do I bring this up? Because someone in the money business in Nigeria and Somalia is already developing a real-world alternative to New York's business model. I don’t know if this alternative to lackadaisically regulated markets will work, but I do know that it can be done — and New York isn’t doing it. And therefore it will be done, and eventually, I bet, it will be done profitably.

And when it is, our bailout of New York will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the acetaminophen business on the eve of the birth of HeadOn. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the fishing rod business on the eve of the birth of the Ron Popeil Pocket Fisherman. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into copy machine manufacturers on the eve of the birth of the scanner. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into long-term real estate purchases on the eve of the birth of the mortgage-backed derivative.

What business model am I talking about? It is Prince Mfume's plan to turn $5,000 into millions for those are willing to act quickly and transfer his father's frozen funds to the United States. Just last week, Prince Mfume announced by email a partnership with me to road test his business plan there after already inking similar deals with my elderly grandmother, members of her bridge team, and three homemakers in Hoboken.

The Prince's plan involves using your private investment as much advance fees to pay various taxes, attorney fees, transaction fees or bribes into clearing his father's good name and unfreezing his considerable seized assets then feeding those dollars into a new economy of trust and honor. The whole system is then coordinated by the Prince's brother, that integrates and does all the billing so investors are rewarded handsomely.

Under the Prince model, partners can either send money directly through trusted channels or send the Prince your personal banking information, where he and his economic advisers will use them to collect the funds by wire. That way the Prince, or any of his partners, benefits from your trust and good will and you will be rewarded handsomely. Wall Street sells mortgage-backed derivatives needing hundreds of billions of dollars of cash granted to them. Prince Mfume sells investments guaranteed by the Prince's adopted nation of Nigeria and blessed by God.

The first checks from the Royal Bank of Central Somalia are scheduled to hit my bank account in 2011, when the whole sum of seized monies should be freed and collected. On Tuesday, the Boca Raton Sewing, Travel, Bridge and Investment Club invited Prince Mfume to join the first alternative investment strategy project along with clubs from Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach, and Clearwater. Prince Mfume was the only foreign national invited to participate, working with Florida’s leading investment clubs, to build a collective investment fund for banks in Mogadishu, the New York of Somalia.

What I find exciting about Prince Mfume is that it is building an investment concept off the new thinking of the 21st century, not the one from the 20th — the exact same way that Carlos the Jackel did to overturn the narcotics business. What did Carlos understand first? One, that today’s distribution networks would allow anyone with bribe money to sell narco. Two, that secondary sellers and cutting substances would allow anyone to transfer product to anyone else. You wouldn’t need pure product or cartel access anymore. The Jackel simply took all those innovations and integrated them into a single processing, purchasing and distribution system that completely disrupted the narco business.

What Mfume, the founder of Prince's Monetary Export, is saying is that there is a new way to become wealthy, not just live comfortably, using the same currency. It just takes the right kind of investment vehicle — the narcotics in this story — and the right kind of investment product — the distribution network — to make the business model work for everyone without the savings and the responsibility to invest into stocks, bond and commodities markets to speculate on home prices. The average American is paying $7 a Scott trade for worthless mortgage backed derivatives, which also adds to the encouragement of under-regulated markets and strengthens robber baron bank accounts.

Do not expect this innovation to come out of New York. Remember, in 1997, the Ford Motor Company Employees Credit Union got better rates on savings — by around $0.03 — than many New York-based banks in 2008. But don’t be surprised when the next better mortgage-backed derivative comes out of somewhere else. It can be done. It will be done. If we miss the chance to win the race for Mortgage Boom-and-Bust 2.0 because we keep mindlessly bailing out financial institutions who made the nation broke in Mortgage Boom-and-Bust 1.0, there will be no one to blame more than New York’s new shareholders: we the taxpayers.

Read the original breathtakingly uninformed Op-Ed here at the New York Times website. Then try your own below!

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which Mr. Sepkowitz cites as his source, says 31% of people involved in fatal crashes in 2007 were speeding at the time. From this, we can draw several conclusions. The first is that while speed was a factor in these crashes, it is not given as the cause. The other obvious conclusion is that two thirds of people involved in fatal crashes were not speeding at the time. So, by Mr. Sepkowitz’s logic, isn't it actually safer to speed than it is to drive at or below the speed limit? Maybe we should call for a ban on not speeding.

There’s a huge gap in the NHTSA’s numbers, meaning we don’t know what percentage of overall speeding traffic, nor what percentage of overall law-abiding traffic, was killed in road accidents. Therefore it’s impossible to determine the true statistical danger of speeding. Nor does the study state what the actual cause of all the accidents was. If, for instance, a person was killed by a truck running a red light, while that person was speeding, would speed or the running of the red light be considered the cause? The NHTSA doesn’t know, but would in that case list speed as a factor. We'd list "running of the red light."

Mr. Sepkowitz goes on to contradict his own argument by stating that in 2006, “76 percent of speeding drivers killed in motor vehicle accidents had been drinking.” Wouldn't that suggest drinking, not speed, was the contributing factor to their deaths?

But how should we limit the performance potential of vehicles to a speed which Mr. Sepkowitz feels is safe? “It’s called cruise control. In its common application, cruise control maintains a steady speed, but a minor adjustment would assure that vehicles, no matter the horsepower, never go past 75 miles per hour.” Hmm, perhaps Mr. Sepkowitz should stick to his important day job — you know, being vice-chairman of medicine at the Sloan-Kettering cancer center — rather than playing amateur car mechanic. [via NYTimes.com]

Yes, yes, we know that's not the normal tack our site takes, but can you blame us? What in the segment is really all that fun to drive? Frankly, the Econoline's too big to compete, despite our desires to make such a head-on competition happen, and C.J.'s not impressing us with comparisons to "fun" vehicles like the Buick Enclave and most definitely not winning points with a Honda Odyssey. Sure, you could get a Honda Odyssey, but the average selling price — as C.J. points out — is almsot five grand more than the average selling price point on the Town & Country and Grand Caravan. It may not necessarily (it may be, someone check this one out for us — do some configurator work in the comments below if you could) be because they're just so much cheaper (re: crappier), but rather that the toys Mom & Dad want to keep the little brats quiet in the back two rows of seats are so much cheaper to get to in the Dodge and the Chrysler.

Also, let's be clear here — Dan Neil says the twin Chrysler minivans are the bestest people movers ever built. And if you're going to go negative on it, you certainly don't have the same panache as Clarkson. Frankly Ms. Cregg, you sir are no Jeremy Clarkson.And that's all there is to it. [NYT Automobiles]

Apparently the 2.8-liter PRV6 in the 1981 DeLorean isn't holding up too well and, gasp, stalls out on occasion. We know, we're just as shocked as you are. Hold on to your hats though fellas, because the most unbelievable fact here is Ms. Reilly is single. She's probably more than willing to accept applications from novelty car junkies or creepy Back to the Future fanatics. [NYT via Dethroner]

"Who exactly was clamoring for a two-seat, gas-guzzling pickup with the cheapest-looking interior this side of a Motel 6?"

...he misnames as the "Pontiac Sport Truck," forgetting those strong G8 roots. But he makes up for it with hackery like calling our beloved El Camino the "Like Hell Camino," the "Pontiac Wallaby" and the "Haulacious." Isn't that precious? It's like he studied at the school of me, but without the love of real cars. [New York Times]

So feel free to drop him any questions to askthetimes@nytimes.com. I'm sure he'd love to have a whole slew of Jalopnik readers asking questions like "What's your favorite Toyota Hybrid?" or "Why run a drag race between a Toyota Highlander Hybrid and a Toyota Highlander and allow the writer to declare the Hybrid 'kept up' but give no 1/4 mile times for either like Sunday's review?" You know, all the important stuff. [NYT]

I'm pleased to announce that Bill Vlasic will be the Times' new Detroit bureau chief, taking over from Micki Maynard, who will be moving on to a new assignment in Washington next year.

Micki is hard to replace, with her knack for seeing around corners, and for writing smart and bright enterprise that tends to walk onto Page One. But we're confident Bill can continue the Times' tradition of first-rate coverage out of the nation's automotive capital.

With more than a dozen years' experience covering the industry, most recently for the Detroit News, Bill knows the business inside-out. Detroit is a company story, a consumer story, a labor story, an environmental story and a political story, and Bill has demonstrated an ability to approach the beat from all these angles.

He won a Loeb Award in 2005 for a series on safety problems with car roofs, and was a Loeb finalist in three other years. And he wrote a gripping series on Heinz Prechter's battle with manic depression, and how it drove the prominent auto executive to take his own life.

His book, "Taken for a Ride," about Daimler Benz's buyout of Chrysler, which he wrote with Brad Stertz, was lauded by our own Keith Bradsher in the Times' Book Review. He likened it to "Barbarians at the Gate...a spellbinding tale, juicy gossip and all, of how business is really done among the world's largest companies."

Bill is a Detroit native and the father of two sons, ages 24 and 21, and a 16-year-old daughter. Please welcome him when he arrives in New York for orientation in the next few weeks.

After reading reports and following up with local police and former associates, here's what we've learned:

First, the owner of Unique Performance and everyone at the company (whoever is left, we hear most were laid off already) ain't talking. There are serious legal issues and the lack of attempts at saving face mean that UP probably isn't coming back.

Second, there have been no formal charges made by the Dallas County District Attorney. This doesn't mean anything because the DA isn't obligated to file charges yet and it's possible that part of the investigation continues.

Third, if you've given Unique Performance money and haven't gotten your car yet things aren't looking good. It's a little unclear what the end-game is here but the ability to get money back (probably punitively) is likely tied to there being money and significant assets at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, the behavior of this company is not indicative of a company awash in cash. If we're generous in our assumptions, Unique Performance got in this situation because they weren't able to generate enough revenue to cover expenses and accrued significant debt. But this is only speculation as we haven't seen the company's balance sheet yet (and probably won't until it becomes an exhibit for the prosecution).

The next move we expect to happen is that the Dallas DA will file charges and then UP will make some sort of statement... maybe. We'll keep you posted as we learn more. [NY Times]