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 don’t see 0bama’s connection to this Killdee character in the article.
Interesting. I’m not used to good ideas coming from this administration.
We could test it out on the Democrat Party to see how well it works.
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Good post potlatch
This is a landgrab for Obama and the left
Like conficating homes in CT to give to developers who will allegedly build buildings and homes that will pay higher property taxes - bribes and kickbacks galore
Like shutting down sucessful Republican auto dealers and giving leftwing minorities their franchises
Like Clinton banning coal and shale oil by Exec Order and declaring National Parks
It all comes to money and power and control
An Austrian Hitler and his NAZIS are sing “Happy Days Are Here Again” in German in Berlin as they did in 1933 - for FDR
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Neat graphics potlatch
It was not Christian altruism that was behind Obama’s deep and many interests and connections in development in Chicago
[Neat graphics potlatch]
Thank you.
They are called concentration camps
I went to a talk on New Urbanism and the speaker kept talking about how we are too concerned with individualism instead of community.
We had to destroy the cities in order to save them.
<bulldozing large abandoned areas of mostly BLACK cities?
If the areas are abandoned, what difference does it make whether the cities are mostly black or not? No one is living there. I could be wrong, but if no one’s viable property is being razed, what’s the diff?
Former Philadelphian here. I never, ever saw abandoned houses, graffiti on houses, and just general trash as I saw when I moved to Philadelphia. It was quite depressing - I had never seen that level of squalor, over so much of the city, as I had in Philly - and I came from DC.
I went back a couple of years ago for a conference and took the trolley up to my old neighborhood. The housing values had skyrocketed, but boy, I would never live there now. I’m happy to be out of that cesspit.
What’s next, forcing everyone into agrarian collectives and “restarting civilization?” It’s right out of the Khmer Rouge playbook.
WOW! Where is this from? Did you write it?
Here's the other trouble. If you go out and bullzone the North side of Flint, where are those people going to go, and what will the crime rate be in those places? This is a band-aid.
Exactly what I was thinking. Where are these refugees going to relocate to? Who will pay for the relocation? Could their relocation serve another purpose by altering the political composition on an electoral district to the favor of one party over another? I think we know the answers to all of these questions.
I really have one question that each and every one should contemplate: If you or I destroyed our homes, whether intentionally or through benign neglect, who could we count on to provide us with a new one? This idea is bullshit in spades. The people who live in these areas were direct contributors to the mess they find themselves in. As my old grandpappy used to say: You made your bed, now lay in it.
Ping.
What is unsustainable is our industrial/trade policy. You know, the one that turned the most powerful engine of manufacturing in history into a bombed out rust belt. Where the rust belt is shrinking, such places as Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are rapidly growing. That's no coincidence.
No, cities are not self-destroying. How old is Rome? What Obama is trying to do (it's actually not his idea but he likes it) is a classic communist/fascist doctrine of controlling populations and people. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and our own government with the Indians have used it to powerful effect. Did any good ever come of it? Forcible resettlement. That's what it's called, and whatever phony good intentions are used to justify it, it's still bad.
Also, it won't stop with a few places like Flint or Detroit. Bank on it.
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