Obama administration proposes study about shrinking cities by bulldozing emptier area

[rooms222]

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


From the Telegraph....The Feature story on the Drudge Report this evening...........



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.



By Tom Leonard in Flint, Michigan
Published: 6:30PM BST 12 Jun 2009

A boarded up house sits for sale in Michigan. Photo: GETTY


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.
"Places like Flint have hit rock bottom. They're at the point where it's better to start knocking a lot of buildings down," she said.
Flint, sixty miles north of Detroit, was the original home of General Motors. The car giant once employed 79,000 local people but that figure has shrunk to around 8,000.
Unemployment is now approaching 20 per cent and the total population has almost halved to 110,000.
The exodus – particularly of young people – coupled with the consequent collapse in property prices, has left street after street in sections of the city almost entirely abandoned.
In the city centre, the once grand Durant Hotel – named after William Durant, GM's founder – is a symbol of the city's decline, said Mr Kildee. The large building has been empty since 1973, roughly when Flint's decline began.
Regarded as a model city in the motor industry's boom years, Flint may once again be emulated, though for very different reasons.
But Mr Kildee, who has lived there nearly all his life, said he had first to overcome a deeply ingrained American cultural mindset that "big is good" and that cities should sprawl – Flint covers 34 square miles.
He said: "The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across the US, there's an assumption that all development is good, that if communities are growing they are successful. If they're shrinking, they're failing."
But some Flint dustcarts are collecting just one rubbish bag a week, roads are decaying, police are very understaffed and there were simply too few people to pay for services, he said.
If the city didn't downsize it will eventually go bankrupt, he added.
Flint's recovery efforts have been helped by a new state law passed a few years ago which allowed local governments to buy up empty properties very cheaply.
They could then knock them down or sell them on to owners who will occupy them. The city wants to specialise in health and education services, both areas which cannot easily be relocated abroad.
The local authority has restored the city's attractive but formerly deserted centre but has pulled down 1,100 abandoned homes in outlying areas.
Mr Kildee estimated another 3,000 needed to be demolished, although the city boundaries will remain the same.
Already, some streets peter out into woods or meadows, no trace remaining of the homes that once stood there.
Choosing which areas to knock down will be delicate but many of them were already obvious, he said.
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.
"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow," he said.
Mr Kildee acknowledged that some fellow Americans considered his solution "defeatist" but he insisted it was "no more defeatist than pruning an overgrown tree so it can bear fruit again".

[Crumbled_pavement]

NOOOOOO!!!!!! We must save every single structure that was ever built to preserve our history for billions and billions of years. If we knock down even one garage we will lose architecture that will never be returned EVER! Not to mention we will assist in the destruction of the earth. Save EVERY structure for eternity. . .

[MIRepublic]

It'd be an even better point if you'd learned to be a little more subtle on the snark; otherwise, you just come across as a jerk.

[alsodave]

There was a factory
Now there are mountains and rivers
You got it, you got it
We caught a rattlesnake
Now we got something for dinner
We got it, we got it
There was a shopping mall
Now it's all covered with flowers
You've got it, you've got it
If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
You've got it, you've got it

[HazenPingree]

NOOOOOO!!!!!! We must save every single structure that was ever built to preserve our history for billions and billions of years. If we knock down even one garage we will lose architecture that will never be returned EVER! Not to mention we will assist in the destruction of the earth. Save EVERY structure for eternity. . .

If you are trying to make fun of preservationists, you are missing the point. I fought extremely hard to save Tiger Stadium, and I am fighting to save Lafayette.

I am also one of the greatest proponents of rightsizing. In fact, for my thesis, I am studying in detail the social, economic, physical, and environmental impacts of rightsizing.

If you confuse preservation of historic structures with preservation of crack houses, you are missing the point completely.

[oladub]

I was up late one night recently watching the history channel. The programs I watched had to do with the last days of the Roman Empire. Waves of barbarians crossed the Empire's borders. Sometimes they decided to stay and sometimes they just sacked cities and moved on. The government of Rome became more corrupt. Eventually, cities could not be properly maintained. City residents moved into the countryside. The viaducts and other Roman infrastructure products fell into disrepair. They were often disassembled to use the stones to build huts.

It made me think of New Orleans and how it too was abandoned beginning with being provided with lousy levees. It made me think of a space program that used to be able to boldly put people on the moon 40 years ago. Meanwhile, our government is handing our money to patch up banker schemes as it allows our jobs to go overseas. GM collapsed and is receiving borrowed money from China as it plans to import Chinese cars. The vandals and arsonists, who fouled their nests, have simply moved on to new locations. Not recognizing or admitting this cultural breakdown, recent administrations legitimize it. I can't imagine Nero or Caligula using tax money to turn Rome into meadows and fields after it burned.

"Rightsizing" is nonsense. Federal funds are being encouraged to encourage development in other parts of the country. That requires more streets, more water and sewer lines , etc.. Detroit already has an infrastructure grid in place. It makes no sense to build new infrastucture and sprawl in Denver suburbs while tearing up existing infrastructure in Detroit. The government is acting like the folks that strip houses of copper pipes and calling it 'rightsizing' to make it acceptable.

[jtf1972]

"Rightsizing" sounds like just another scheme. That is, unless we are talking about taking an authentic look at what works and what doesn't, changing regional policy to end sprawl, and bulldoze specific areas to create urban parkland ala NYC's Central Park [[which would increase the value of surrounding land.)

[mwilbert]

Unfortunately, the people who want to live in Denver probably have reasons to be there, and don't want to live in Detroit. So the fact that there is infrastructure in Detroit really isn't very relevant.

The whole idea would be to eliminate specific areas. and concentrate the existing population in others to make them more viable, not just randomly knock stuff down.
Hopefully a smaller city with less vacant stuff and more density could allow the creation of a city that would be more attractive.

The problem is that to do this, you have to have a plan. You have to NOT have people building stuff in places that are going to be razed. You have to provide places for the people who live in the areas to be abandoned to go, preferably better places in the areas that are going to be preserved. To be successful, I think it would require getting a substantial majority of the people affected to buy into it, by explaining how this could improve both their circumstances and the city as a whole.

But that would require a level of foresight and political will that is beyond anything that has been seen in Metro Detroit. I would love to have it happen, but it is easier to just let stuff rot in random locations and blight its neighboring area, and so that is what I expect.

[rooms222]

Rural parts of Michigan are "bulldozing" as well.... Again on the Drudge Report, so Michigan is getting a lot of "press" with our issues.........



Rural Mich. counties turn failing roads to gravel

Comments 6 | Recommend 5



June 12, 2009 - 4:43 PM



LANSING, Mich. [[AP) - Some Michigan counties have turned a few once-paved rural roads back to gravel to save money.

More than 20 of the state's 83 counties have reverted deteriorating paved roads to gravel in the last few years, according to the County Road Association of Michigan. The counties are struggling with their budgets because tax revenues have declined in the lingering recession.

Montcalm County converted nearly 10 miles of primary road to gravel this spring.

The county estimates it takes about $10,000 to grind up a mile of pavement and put down gravel. It takes more than $100,000 to repave a mile of road.

Reverting to gravel has happened in a few other states but it is most typical in Michigan. At least 50 miles have been reverted in the state in the past three years.d Association of Michigan. The counties are struggling with their budgets because tax revenues have declined in the lingering recession.

Montcalm County converted nearly 10 miles of primary road to gravel this spring.

The county estimates it takes about $10,000 to grind up a mile of pavement and put down gravel. It takes more than $100,000 to repave a mile of road.

Reverting to gravel has happened in a few other states but it is most typical in Michigan. At least 50 miles have been reverted in the state in the past three years.

[Lorax]

You have at this time an alignment of politics and desire on behalf of the people to actually accomplish something like this, but that window will close at some point, so now would be the time to take bold steps to radically change the visual face of Detroit.

You'll hear screams of "socialism" from the entrenched business class, but their voices haven't the impact they used to, especially in light of the continuing erosion of Detroit's business community.

What needs to happen, is entire sectors of the city need to be treated as nature preserves, much in the way Southfield has blocked off stands of trees, wetlands, etc.

Any new housing, retail, etc, can be built on the periphery, focusing on the nature preserve as an asset to be near.

Property values you may find would be greater around these areas.

As a design motif, the shape of these areas should be natural, not hemmed in by a grid system, but amorphically shaped, with new boulevarded streets winding around them, with any new development on one side of these boulevards facing the nature preserves.

[mjs]

Sounds like a good way for blocks and neighborhoods to start over again. Where would you choose to put money into building a new house you want to live in and raise kids in? A street where 7 of 10 lots have a house that needs to be torn down or a street where 7 of 10 lots are cleared or wooded?

[jtf1972]

Sounds like a good way for blocks and neighborhoods to start over again. Where would you choose to put money into building a new house you want to live in and raise kids in? A street where 7 of 10 lots have a house that needs to be torn down or a street where 7 of 10 lots are cleared or wooded?

How about a street with no vacant lots or homes bordering a landscaped park?

Not every urban park need be on a grand scale of Central park or Prospect Park. Washington Square Park, Thompkins Square Park & many others make urban living extremely nice.

[Fnemecek]

If you confuse preservation of historic structures with preservation of crack houses, you are missing the point completely.

Amen, Andy. Amen

[azchick]

Instead of tearing down historic homes we should focus on bringing jobs to these neighborhoods like Flint, MI. We should have more incentives to private companies to create jobs. People will move back if there are high paying jobs!
We could offer tax credits to people who buy homes in this area to help them restore these homes. It is a shame to see homes with this amount of character, like the one pictured, be torn down.
To me it seems bringing jobs back would create a much better economic recovery than tearing down neighborhoods. Not to mention it would bring back the dignity to the state of MI.

[Crumbled_pavement]

It is a shame to see homes with this amount of character, like the one pictured, be torn down.

Exactly! Save every structure forever . . .

[mwilbert]

There is no likelihood there will be enough jobs in Flint or Detroit for the people currently living there, much less for people to fill up vast tracts of empty/deteriorated space.

If Southeastern Michigan can attract enough jobs in the next 10 years to keep the population it has, that would be a pleasant surprise.

[mjs]

How about a street with no vacant lots or homes bordering a landscaped park?

And who will pay for all of the property rights, landscaping, paving, and maintenance? Whats wrong with allowing nature to do its thing? Its been working where Hines Park returned park to nature. More parks is not a realistic option. All thats left is a choice between allowing vacant buildings to rot or returning the land to nature.

"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."


If the city didn't downsize it will eventually go bankrupt, he added.


"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow," he said.
Mr Kildee acknowledged that some fellow Americans considered his solution "defeatist" but he insisted it was "no more defeatist than pruning an overgrown tree so it can bear fruit again".

[Jason]

Demolishing everything and ripping out all of the basements and utilities and things would be super expensive.

Unless they're willing to spend a ton of money, I think the best to hope for are fields of rubble, covered in ghetto palms. If they're willing to spend a ton of money to remove everything, then there definitely won't be money left over to turn anything into something like Central Park.

As far as Flint goes, I guess I'd have to see their plan. The city isn't that big and a lot of the areas that would probably be demolished already look like they're next to nature.

Plus there are so many political and legal and social issues involved in this. Best of luck to them though.

[mjs]

If your old car breaks down and costs more to fix than replace, it costs money to get it towed away. However, keeping it in the yard with weeds growing out of it and insuring it isn't exactly helping you either. God help you if a kid gets injured in it.

Neighborhoods full of abandoned homes cost the government money too. It costs money because they bring the costs of crime, injury, and fires, they waste utilities, they lower property values, they lower tax revenues, and the lots themselves provide no revenue at all. Tearing a house down has high initial costs, but it saves money every year after that.

As for the legal issues, its easy to take ownership and clear these messed up titles if no one steps forward in court. If someone does step forward, hand them a nuisance abatement complaint. Either way, any Judge will order it fixed or demolished and the city can either have the lot or collect the demo costs.

[Lorax]

The costs in this case would be less than they have in the past, since the new way of doing it involves removing any hazardous materials, of which there are not many in the average house, save asbestos siding, shingles, flooring, etc. Then salvage anything of value, which is what Architectural Artifacts of Detroit is all about, this includes wood flooring, doors, jambs, any specimen wood, widows, brick, stone.

It's doubtful hauling everything to a remote landfill would be economical.

The bulk of what's left of the home is collapsed into the basements, then layered with topsoil. Nature will take care of the rest.

[oladub]

And we are supposed to believe that bulldozed neighborhoods are going to be magically turned into pristine fields and meadows with delightful unicorns even though the City hasn't been able to keep up its expressway grass and school playgrounds or stop crime.

[Funaho]

And we are supposed to believe that bulldozed neighborhoods are going to be magically turned into pristine fields and meadows with delightful unicorns even though the City hasn't been able to keep up its expressway grass and school playgrounds or stop crime.

Well I think the general idea is that the areas returned to nature would be just that, returned to nature, without any human maintenance.

FWIW the freeway grass cutting is MDOT's problem...they announced a while back that grass cutting was being reduced to only one or two cuts this season due to budget cutbacks.

[rjk]

If you want to see a waste of tax dollars on a desolate area check out the neighborhood surrounding The Ivanhoe Cafe. Quite a few of the corner sidewalks have been redone with the red traction sections and are now wheelchair accessible. The problem is that the rest of the sidewalks are so badly damaged and covered in weeds no one would or could walk or use a wheelchair on them anyways. I'd like to meet the person who thought it was a smart idea to redo corner sidewalks on streets with one or two houses on them.

If the city isn't going to go through with this idea they at least have to be smarter before they toss money around on all but abandoned neighborhoods.

[Lorax]

And we are supposed to believe that bulldozed neighborhoods are going to be magically turned into pristine fields and meadows with delightful unicorns even though the City hasn't been able to keep up its expressway grass and school playgrounds or stop crime.

Chimeras, Basilisks, and Chupacabras maybe, but no Unicorns, sorry....I know you were hoping.

[Funaho]

I'd like to meet the person who thought it was a smart idea to redo corner sidewalks on streets with one or two houses on them.

I seem to recall the sidewalk thing was the result of a lawsuit against the city for not having them already. While I agree in principle with having the wheelchair access I also think it was silly to force a city that's already for all intents and purposes bankrupt to replace sidewalks that nobody, wheelchair or not, is going to use.