The federal government is giving a Wayne county agency $600,000 to assess more than 30 potentially contaminated sites in Southwest Detroit.
The grant will not cover the costs of cleaning up or redeveloping these sites but Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano says it's exciting to see more focus being placed on the city's neighborhoods.
"A lot of the prosperity that we've had fortunately for Detroit and the development we have seen has been downtown. This starts to shift it really towards the neighborhoods when you look at it it goes towards one of the most vibrant neighborhoods which is southwest Detroit."
Ficano says that these grants could also have economic benefits in the neighborhoods of southwest Detroit.
"It would create some jobs through the small businesses that would be able to be successful because they would have this assessment done and then be able to see what the actual cost is and then go ahead and have the development put in."
Wayne County was awarded a similar grant in 2007 which was used to successfully identify and work on sites that contained petroleum and other hazardous substances.
-Lindsay Hall, Michigan Radio Newsroom
