Save for a rusty, seatless swing set, the Brinket-Hibbard Playlot resembles many vacant lots pockmarking Detroit’s hardscrabble east side.
Looking across Hibbard Street at what is left of her childhood park, Patricia Scott, whose family lives in the only home remaining on the block, recalled better days.
“There were nine of us kids, and I can remember how we used to have fun over there, when there was a sandbox and some hobbyhorses, and I think a seesaw,” said Ms. Scott, 56. “The way it is now, I think it’s pitiful.”
Detroit’s own assessment of the park is similarly grim, according to a recent report, which said, “Except for an old swing set frame, this appears to be another vacant lot in a neighborhood of many vacant lots.”
Now, some city officials are wondering, Would you like to buy it?
The Brinket-Hibbard playground is one of about 90 municipal parks — mostly small play spaces — that the city of Detroit is considering putting up for sale under a contentious proposal that seeks to condense and consolidate park space and resources in thriving areas. The city would use the money earned from any sales to maintain and possibly expand parks in parts of the city that are more densely populated than, say, areas like the one around Hibbard Street.
The Recreation Department’s master plan calls the proposal “park repositioning,” which officials promote as a clear-eyed way to look at necessary downsizing, a way to align park space with the significant demographic shifts over the last half-century in Detroit, which has lost about a million people since 1950.
But critics say it could further hurt downtrodden areas where parks are equally appreciated, and that green space is too precious to be bartered for money.
“They call some of these parks ‘surplus,’” said City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, an opponent of the plan, “but I don’t know what the heck that means because there is no such thing as a surplus of something that is necessary for the good and welfare of the community. The very concept of selling off public parkland in somebody’s hope to address a one-time money crunch is not something you do as a big city. We have to protect these parks for future generations.”
Some proponents of the parks say that eliminating a park in a declining neighborhood would make a resurgence much harder.
“It could be a case of penny wise, pound foolish,” said Abe Kadushin of Kadushin Associates, an architecture firm that does a lot of work in Detroit. “I understand the need to make money, if it’s an asset that’s valuable and the city can dispose of it. But it may not be the wisest thing in the long run.”
The proposal seems to have stalled in the City Council’s Neighborhood and Community Services Committee, whose chairwoman is Ms. Watson. But the administration of Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick plans to pursue it, possibly along with other options like neighborhood or corporate sponsorships. Though with more than 300 parks — 40 percent of which are in poor condition — sales to developers or other for-profit entities could be most beneficial.
If private buyers emerge for most of the parks in question, the city estimates it can raise $8.1 million from selling the land (about 124 acres) and more than $5 million a year in tax revenue, while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on maintenance.

“It’s an opportunity to look at where we can put parks closer to people,” said James Canning, a city spokesman. “We’ve constantly looked for ways to make government more efficient, and we see this whole idea of possibly repositioning parks as promoting an increased quality of life for those living in our neighborhoods.”

Some experts say the idea makes sense. While many cities and states are preoccupied by figuring out how to grow, several, like Detroit and New Orleans, are grappling with how to shrink, an alternative that is rarely pleasant. Recently, a melee erupted when the New Orleans City Council voted to demolish four public housing projects (to be replaced by fewer units for poor people).

Eric Dueweke, a lecturer in urban planning at the University of Michigan who studies Detroit, said the city had lost so many people that it needed fewer parks. “When the neighborhoods were dense,” Mr. Dueweke said, “it made sense to have a pocket park in your neighborhood. When the neighborhood is not dense, it really is questionable about whether it’s a good idea.”

About 90,000 parcels, he said, or about a quarter of the lots in the city, are vacant. “It’s not like we’re this concrete jungle,” Mr. Dueweke said, “where we need every inch of green space.”

Financial pressures are forcing cities to make difficult decisions.

“When you have a city that’s really struggling with unemployment and an eroding tax base, you can’t maintain everything, you have to be strategic about what you put your money into,” Mr. Dueweke said. “And I think most people would rather see the city put resources into the major parks that most people use.”

The executive director of the National Recreation and Park Association, John Thorner, urged caution in the possible sale of parks.

“Sometimes it become a self-fulfilling prophesy, a city doesn’t take care of a park, and so it’s not used,” Mr. Thorner said. “And then they close the park down because it wasn’t used.”

Mr. Canning said Detroit made improvements to 11 parks this year, and spent $16 million to renovate a major recreation center. In 2006, he said, $18.5 million was invested in two new recreation centers, and 18 parks were improved around the city.

But park officials say the city has more park space than it can reasonably maintain.

The Sylvester-Field Playlot, also slated for possible sale, has a flagpole, some old monkey-bar-type equipment and two swing sets with dangling rusted chains and only one seat. In some places the park’s wire fence is bent to the ground. Four discarded tires sit just outside it. Next to the park is a house with bricks missing from one side. A small church is on a facing corner; an abandoned house on another.

These days few children live in the neighborhood, said Milford Eley, 60, a retired laborer who has lived near the park for seven years. Still, Mr. Eley would hate to see the park disappear.

“Parks give the neighborhood a countryside effect,” he said. “It attracts the squirrels, even a few pheasants. It’s nice. It makes the place livable. And now the city wants to sell these? My question is, To who, and for what?”