US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive
 

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.

the full story here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...o-survive.html

They bulldozed crops right before the great depression in order to stop the depression....

i agree with it. there are parts of cities that need to be removed completely. Parts of New York are completely abandoned and cost alot of money in tax dollars to try and keep crime free. There are communities right now in the US that are completely bare and full of abandoned houses and factories owned by collapsing banks that are now worthless and are crime magnets, again costing you and me tax dollars to patrol and investigate crime in. Not to mention the abandoned building fires have increased heavily in the last year due to all the foreclosures.

Perhaps they should start by bulldozing redundant gov't buildings that house deadwood civil servants.

Eliminate the bloated bureaucracy and the asshole politicians.

While we're at it - take the wrecking ball to union headquarters.

It doesn't surprise me a bit. People move and areas get abandon, there is no reason to keep them up and try to maintain/police them if they are just barren land.

The town I grew up in was really small (about 2,000 people) and there was an area of it that had about 10 old abandon houses in it. Nothing there worth while. All that ever happened there was kids getting into the houses to drink, party and screw. So when I was in high school the city just bulldozed it all and left it an open field. Now 25 years later the city has grown to around 7,500 people. About 10 years ago the city sold that land to a developer who build a really nice housing community there. They were still building on that land as recent as last year.

they saved money by plowing it down then made money later selling it and bringing in new home owners who pay taxes.

Who is "they?" The government does not own this property they want to steal from its owners to bulldoze. Then resell for a profit later. If property owners want to bulldoze fine, but having the government force you to bulldoze your property or steal your property to bulldoze is another. :2 cents:

Getting to the heart of things here.

all property in a city can only fall into one of two categories from a city budget perspective... one that generates revenue and one that generates expenses (i.e. parks etc)

its about time we started taking a common sense approach to dealing with these simple facts.

I do agree to bulldozing abandoned towns and then redeveloping them as it creates more jobs as long as they dont force house owners out of thier homes

Agreed..

Anytime I hear the words "Washington think-tank" I know the tax payer is getting fucked in one way or another.

So how are tax payers getting fucked in this case? Care to elaborate?

I can only speak fro the situation from the town I grew up in. There the houses were abandoned. They were owned by a bank (or banks) and the city bought them from the those banks for next to nothing. So in this case the city did own them. I don't know who owns the property in the article, but it does say in the article: "The city is buying up houses in more affluent areas to offer people in neighbourhoods it wants to demolish. Nobody will be forced to move, said Mr Kildee." so it sounds like they are making some kind of deals with the owners of those homes.

you know, all the sprawling suburbs athat were spec built and getting forclosed on now? that would be good to tear down

The town I live in has one of those. They built it in three phases. Phase 1 had some nice houses that went for around 250-275K and sold out as soon as the model homes were built. Then phase 2 had even nicer houses and they went for 305-355K and it sold out pretty quickly. The last phase had the same type homes as phase 2. The built it in advance and were trying to sell them for 399K+ and then the housing market collapsed so now they are sitting there with about 30 empty homes that are probably worth less than it cost them to build them. The company is now trying to rent them out while they still look for buyers.

How much do they pay these people to come up with obvious schemes?

That is some pretty radical move.

Now, there's a good proposal!

:thumbsup

good thing a black president is in charge. If a white person proposed bulldozing ghettos, there would be race riots.

That is a bald move.too much of that and we're going back to ice age.