Posted on 06/12/2009 11:11:02 AM PDT by Schnucki
Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline.
The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.
Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.
The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.
Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.
Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes.
Most are former industrial cities in the "rust belt" of America's Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.
In Detroit, shattered by the woes of the US car industry, there are already plans to split it into a collection of small urban centres separated from each other by countryside.
"The real question is not whether these cities shrink – we're all shrinking – but whether we let it happen in a destructive or sustainable way," said Mr Kildee. "Decline is a fact of life in Flint. Resisting it is like resisting gravity."
Karina Pallagst, director of the Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective programme at the University of California, Berkeley, said there was "both a cultural and political taboo" about admitting decline in America.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I’m trying to think of the New Netherland style town, an eighteenth century jewel, which bulldozed its city center in anticipation of Urban Renewal money. The place would have been worth billons as a tourist destination today. Now it’s just another mid sixties sh*thole because the funds never showed up.
Uh-huh, and how well did that turn out for the country.
I was raised in Washington D.C. so let me tell you about those wonderful new opportunities using only one street as an example.
North Capitol street which ran from the Capitol to Maryland had an effective privately owned streetcar system. One could ride the street car in the spring and summer and barely see the sky all the wonderful trees lining it. From Union Station, a stone's throw from the Capitol one could board a streetcar and take it all the way to Glen Echo Amusement Park with the last leg a very scenic passage. .
LBJ's cronies rammed through a highway system down the middle of North Capitol Street widening it substantially by seizing through eminent domain. They also managed to destroy every small business which had lined the street previously, almost all of which were minority owned.
The remaining townhouses which had previously enjoyed small front yards, many with fruit trees ( the peaches were really nice) and wide sidewalks were tight up against retaining walls and narrow sidewalks. In the course of the highway construction what had been essentially a thriving quiet black middle class neighborhood property values plummeted and the business and property owners fled to other neighborhoods or left the city entirely. A whole sector of people who worked locally lost their jobs and all too many went on welfare. ( That's another discussion altogether.) The decline continued at an increasing pace from that point on
I wish that the had been a time lapse movie made of just that one street, you would weep at the loss.
That what this is about. Getting rid of the now worthless abandoned housing that is occupied by crack addicts. Raise the houses and create parks. Sounds like a plan to me.
That's were the large abandoned areas are.
Us too.
Just making way for the planned communities we’ll all be forced to live in.
Bulldoze Detroit? That city is the automobile industry icon.........
Memphis is NOT a large abandoned area. It has grown to encompass almost the entire county. And there are many non-black residents. Your logic is not applicable.
US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive
UK Telegraph | June 12, 2009 | Tom Leonard
Posted on 06/12/2009 3:04:37 PM PDT by re_tail20
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2270694/posts
This land will be confiscated with the sole purpose being the land will be planned according to Dear Leader’s sardine-can planning, then sold to foreign developers to produce it.
I drove through Buffalo 20 years ago and it was very sad even then.
From “Flint” to “Obamagrad”
That’s a keeper!
Liberals take over in Washington; and our cities get bulldozed.
Make sure to make them “car-free” zones. You can park an Obamamobile if you pay a premium, though.
Why do you assume a decrease in crime when every effort at subsidized low income housing since FDR has resulted in higher crime rates.
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I am not advocating some sort of subsidized home, I am advocating absolutely NO housing in those areas. A park or a nature preserve would see a reduction in crime. True, crime happens in Central Park in NYC, but people don’t live in the park. It would be easier to enforce after dark.
I agree with you on the political aspect. As I was cutting my lawn just now, a smaller Detroit would mean fewer political precincts/wards to monitor on election day. Elecition judges/officers would not be spread so thin. I would think that the most blighted areas of a city is where the voting fraud is done because it would be hard to prove where people live.
This is an interesting video. Most interesting is to look at the buildings and imagine them new. Detroit had an extremely high standard of living at one time from looking at these old houses.
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