US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | June 12, 2009 | Tom Leonard

[Clemenza]

As we may have discussed before, Center City is still in good shape, and their has been some (not enough) improvement in the near North. See our heritage in Independence Park, hit a restaurant and do your shopping on Walnut Street, but don’t go north of the expressway or west of 30th Street Station unless you want to see the Fourth World.

[End Times Sentinel]

Sounds good to me. The section 8 jerks can camp in a park or live in a tree.

[Paladin2]

"Where have we heard this term before...hmmmm... "

Well, some of those places could use some pacification.

[MrB]

I think this is where it will be in < 5 yrs...

[DonaldC]

This idea in places like Detroit (iirc) where there are tens of thousands of empty houses, may not be a bad one.

[Buckeye McFrog]

sounds eerily similar to a plan implemented by Nicolae Ceauşescu in Romania, shortly before they strung him up. Bulldozing large sections of Flint is an idea that has occurred to some other people. Would make an interesting plot for yet another Michael Moore film...

[TexasBeth]

Who is going to own the cleared properties? Let me guess.....Comrade Obama

[GeronL]

how dumb. especially for the fedgov. Let the cities do what they like, especially 25% of Detroit.

Don't force cities to condemn private property.

bye bye property rights

[KarlInOhio]

While the New Urbanism crowd is looking to march suburbanites back into the cities and plow their houses under.

Vee like being crowded into cities. You vill too.

[Churchillspirit]

The Kenyan has already bulldozed his way through The Constitution, so what’s a few cities here or there?

[MrB]

property rights? what’s that?

That’s so... old America.

[Buckeye McFrog]

it could also take the concept of Gerrymandering to a whole new level...

[Zeddicus]

What if I don’t want to live in a crowded, stinky area?

We'll have none of that talk. Now, run along little worker bee and get back to your assigned task in the hive.

[ComputerGuy]

Obama administration ... economic decline

[frposty]

Many of our large cities seem to not be able to sustain themselves. It’s usually blamed on some policy, stupidity, lack of planning, politics, demographics — something that was a mistake.

But maybe these large concentrations of people, streets and other things are inherently self-destroying, and that fixing the cities is not a matter of eliminating mistakes. Perhaps they reach a point where bulldozing and restarting is the only cure, along with a hope that the rebuilt cities will fare better.

[N3WBI3]

HOnestly he is right about this, though I am somewhat amazed there is no

Shrinkage Czar -

Cities like Buffalo, where I grew up are laid out for more than a half a million people, right now the population is south of two hundred and fifty thousand. There are neighborhoods falling apart and it would be nice if the city would just plow them over make some Olmsted like parks and imporve live in the city..

[ConservativeMan55]

LOL

[wintertime]

A lot of Kensington, too.

I worked at two offices in the area ( one block from K&A and Hunting Park) in 1999. Lots of boarded up homes and businesses then. It must be worse now, and the blight has probably moved further up Frankford Ave.

[DonaldC]

“Now, run along little worker bee and get back to your assigned task in the hive. “

Somebody needs to photoshop obama into a borg image...hehe

[Richard Kimball]

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.

We're not shrinking in Texas, but if enough more Californians move here to vote in the stuff that killed California, all bets are off.