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The city that perfected the heavy-duty assembly line is using mass-production methods to fight neighborhood blight.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the non-profit Detroit Blight Authority --- which, despite its name, is not run by the government --- gets permission from property owners to tear down their abandoned buildings, a block at a time.

Then, using private, donated money, the authority levels the structures, grinds the lumber through an industrial wood-chipper, and grades the vacant lots. Michigan-based freelance writer Nancy Nall Derringer reports that Blight Authority workers then plant a mix of grass seed and wildflowers that are designed to grow no more than about a foot high.

At its website, the authority claims that its industrial-style methods have reduced the cost of demolition from $10,000 per house to $5,000, "and we aim to go lower."

The Blight Authority is run by Bill Pulte IV, grandson of Bill Pulte III, founder of Pulte Homes, one of the biggest new-home construction companies in the United States. The company built its first house in Detroit in 1950.

"Detroiters have been looking for a reliable, accountable way to fund the removal trash-filled lots and of severely blighted structures," the group says. "This is it."

The group's first cleanup involves 500 lots and 70 vacant houses on 14 blocks in northwest Detroit. Crews also have collected 100,000 pounds of illegally dumped trash, according to the Free Press.

At her blog, Derringer says the block was plagued not only with burned-out houses but also illegally dumped trash. "It's not a total scalp job --- there are still plenty of trees left," Derringer says. "But there will be fewer places to hide for drug-using, trick-turning and other malfeasance."

The Rev. Larry Simmons, pastor of Baber Memorial AME Church, says the group has made a "phenomenal difference" in the neighborhood. "They are doing this on the scale that this problem necessitates and that's what's so impressive," he told the Free Press.