Obama administration proposes study about shrinking cities by bulldozing emptier area

**Hypestyles** · June-14-09, 01:10 PM

Something has to happen, and it has to happen sooner, rather than later.. but its going to be an uphill battle convincing the local detroit leadership & various elements of citizenry that Right-sizing is necessary and not just a plot by T.H.E.Y., Inc. [["they want to take belle isle, the water dept.", etc.).. I had to laugh a few months ago when watching Chuck Stokes Spotlight on the News, they had a columnist for the Mich. Chronicle, Karen Dumas [[now interim Communications Director for Mayor Bing), and she was dissing the idea of urban farming because to her it sounded too close to "a plantation"... oy, vey..
http://tinyurl.com/mdby7s

**MCP-001** · June-14-09, 01:43 PM

Two problems here...

First, it isn't within the powers of the federal government to bulldoze anything. When will the followers of the false prophet final realize this?

Secondly, too much of the city has fallen apart w/o the need for bulldozing.

And on a slightly unrelated note,this week's THC's "Life without People" will feature Detroit.

Can see it getting much worse than it is today.

**Funaho** · June-14-09, 03:45 PM

One thing that concerns me about the thought of essentially closing down sections of the city is utilities maintenance for utilities that cross through that section. I am particularly concerned about water mains and sewer lines, which could easily develop SEVERE problems that could be missed for days of weeks if they happen in the middle of a depopulated area, especially given the age and terrible state of this infrastructure already.

Hell, there was water bubbling out of the street on Scotten near Michigan Ave. that went for three weeks before they finally fixed it. Near that spot is also a recent repair that is once again sinking the street down into the ground. If that was happening in a depopulated area you could end up with a 10 foot sinkhole and nobody would notice until the leak got bad enough to affect water pressure for residents in nearby areas.

**Gsgeorge** · June-14-09, 04:09 PM

Funaho, I think one of the reasons for closing down areas of the city would be to decomission unused or underused infrastructure like sewer lines and power that currently only put a burden on the city's resources and budget for the same reasons you mention yourself. So these utilities would be shut off and sealed off in the event of a neighborhood-wide demolition.

**Funaho** · June-14-09, 05:09 PM

Originally Posted by Gsgeorge

Funaho, I think one of the reasons for closing down areas of the city would be to decomission unused or underused infrastructure like sewer lines and power that currently only put a burden on the city's resources and budget for the same reasons you mention yourself. So these utilities would be shut off and sealed off in the event of a neighborhood-wide demolition.

I just wonder how much of that infrastructure can be shut down without requiring some major [[expensive) rerouting. It would easy to shut down a spur water line into a neighborhood for example, but not a major water main that happened to pass underneath. And sewers aren't really designed to be shut down at ALL...you'd have to dig down to them [[10-20 feet, depending on the area) to actually block them off.

It's a very interesting civil engineering problem. I'm sure people much smarter than I are working on these issues...I'm just curious how it's being worked out.

Lorax · June-14-09, 05:57 PM

The funding for the decommissioning of infrastructure would be built into the funding for demolition. When they discuss returning thousands of acres of land to nature, it would most likely involve re-seeding with native species plants and seeds, and the propogation of wetlands.

Any remnant of human intervention would be erased, in effect creating a nature preserve.

This should eventually encourage development of new housing stock around these preserves, which would be alot more pleasant, and create an opportunity to improve the quality of the built environment and in the end, the quality of life in the city.

**RickBeall** · June-14-09, 08:01 PM

It sounds like forward thinking to me. Focus on keeping some neighborhoods. Turns others into woods. Hey, we might even lure back some suburbanites. Having houses looking into a woods with hiking trails is a selling point.

This idea is easy to make fun of.

I'm sure the Pointes would love to be bordered on the Detroit woods.

But think hard about it.

**Novine** · June-14-09, 08:51 PM

"I just wonder how much of that infrastructure can be shut down without requiring some major [[expensive) rerouting."

Why would anything need to be rerouted? They can maintain major water and sewer lines in rural areas. Why not in areas that go back to nature?

**oladub** · June-15-09, 01:03 AM

Former Secretary of Housing, Katherine Fitts, has an explanation that describes what is going on with this proposal. The corruption rampant in our governments and banks maximize their financial return from trashing neighborhoods [[or other countries) and then profiting from the contracts to rebuild it. It operates as follows:

Phase One--Break It: Private syndicates make money destroying a place through organized crime, covert operations, warfare or a variety of both; [[Too late to do anything about this. It has already happened to Detroit.)
Phase Two- Buy It: The profit generated from breaking it is used to buy or seize â€œlegal controlâ€ at a discount;
Phase Three- Fix It: Government funding, credit and subsidies are then used to â€œfix itâ€ while harvesting remaining assets, including with narcotics trafficking, sex slavery and any other form of liquidating the human, intellectual, environmental and physical capital in a place:
Phase Fourâ€”Declare Victory: Victory is then declared and a flow of foundation and academic grants funded by the â€œbreak it-fix itâ€ profits generate awards, photo opportunities and official archives and documentation for the perpetrators to be admired for their bringing of advanced civilization to the natives
http://solari.com/archive/the-american-tapeworm/

Whether or not developers ever materialize doesn't matter because the contracts have been issued, government jobs are created, and political carreers enhanced. Those of you who are advocating this nonsense are just helping a bunch of crooks line their pockets. In the end, if crime isn't ended, no one except the government will invest around the proposed meadows and fields anyway. If you really want to turn this thing around, buy some life insurance, a shotgun, and an urban homestead and stop voting for enablers.

**mjs** · June-15-09, 01:28 AM

This will help lower crime. You know the amount of crime that happens in these abandoned buildings? Confiscate a crack house and they move three doors down to the next abandoned house. Tear all the shit down and they have to start buying houses and now you can start to hurt the bastards. Why do you think people don't sell crack out of houses in Grosse Pointe or out of beamers? Take away the easy spots to rape girls and shoot at cops. These specific problems with its thousands of taxpayer complaints and its enormous drain on law enforcement resources and tax revenue is what prompted the Wayne County Prosecutor to start confiscating abandoned houses. Since the city has dragged ass on it for decades, there's now 100,000 houses to tear down and thats going to take some efficiency improvements and some major federal funding. If the city did its job back when the hosues were first abandoned, they could have gone after many of the owners, but they didn't and so its going to cost more now and its going to keep costing more and more.

**oladub** · June-15-09, 09:32 AM

Tearing down gutted houses is one issue. Purposely abandoning significant areas of a city including its infrastructure as some sort of civic improvement, on the other hand , is looney. Just tearing down houses will not stop crime because those that rape, kill, etc are still on the loose and will just move on to erode the city somewhere else. Not only are they still on the loose but the entire infrastructure of drugs that contributes to crime survives houses being torn down. Tearing down houses addresses the syptoms rather than the disease. The pemise of the article included the concept that if we had these meadowy nature places that somehow murderers and rapists would not also be attracted to them. My guess is that these new wilderness areas would become policing nightmares and needle infested no mans lands.

A gardener suffering significant damage from rats, rabbits, or whatever has to either eradicate the varmints or fence them out. Planting the destroyed rows of half eaten plants with grass seed is not a solution.

**mjs** · June-15-09, 10:17 AM

I never said it would stop crime. Why do people think that any crime prevention method that doesn't eliminate absolutely 100% of that crime is ineffective? Yes, there will always be crime. The idea is to reduce it. An individual will do what an individual insists on doing, but society should be making sure there's a high liklihood of being caught and that there's consequences for doing it.

Just as it becomes easier to get the rabbit in an open field than under a house, its easier to get the rapist or drug dealer in an open field than in a place with walls that requires a warrant for access. Flush the bastards out into the open and give them nowhere to hide. The statistics show that abandoned buildings have high crime rates and woods and fields have low crime rates. A fact is a fact.

**aprilgirl33** · June-15-09, 10:40 AM

Ok...no messenger shooting. Received this via email [[didn't want to start a new thread). Checked on snopes.com to verify authenticity. While the letter seems to be the real deal, the author of the letter may or may not be listed under the correct name. In any event, it's truly worth a read.

This letter you are about to read was written by a 4th grade teacher recently [[April 2009). She even gave the world her telephone and fax numbers. We are in dire need of more true American citizens who are proud of OUR United States of America . WAKE UP AMERICA . . . please . .
before it is too late!

April 27, 2009

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington , DC 20500

Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.
You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America . You are responsible to the citizens of the United States .
You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth. I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe ? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about?
Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century? Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States ? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?
Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia You don't show Great Britain , our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia . How dare you, sir! How dare you!
You can't find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don't want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey . You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What's the matter with you?
I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you. You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.
What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members -- on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer.
You haven't said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn't! Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million -- not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now.
I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you. I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,

Every Real American

P.S. I rarely ask that emails be 'passed around'.............

PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR EMAIL LIST......it's past time for all
Americans to wake up!

Ms Kathleen Lyday
Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy. C
Hillsboro , MO 63050

[[636) 944-3291 Phone
[[636) 944-3870 Fax

**ghettopalmetto** · June-15-09, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by aprilgirl33

Ok...no messenger shooting. Received this via email [[didn't want to start a new thread). Checked on snopes.com to verify authenticity. While the letter seems to be the real deal, the author of the letter may or may not be listed under the correct name. In any event, it's truly worth a read.

No, I WILL shoot the messenger, for posting this completely unrelated drivel on this thread.

Unless, of course, you can demonstrate how your propaganda piece fits into the proposal that is the topic of this thread.

Bearinabox · June-15-09, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by aprilgirl33

Ok...no messenger shooting. Received this via email [[didn't want to start a new thread). Checked on snopes.com to verify authenticity. While the letter seems to be the real deal, the author of the letter may or may not be listed under the correct name. In any event, it's truly worth a read.

This letter you are about to read was written by a 4th grade teacher recently [[April 2009). She even gave the world her telephone and fax numbers. We are in dire need of more true American citizens who are proud of OUR United States of America . WAKE UP AMERICA . . . please . .
before it is too late!

April 27, 2009

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington , DC 20500

Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.
You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America . You are responsible to the citizens of the United States .
You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth. I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe ? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about?
Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century? Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States ? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?
Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia You don't show Great Britain , our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia . How dare you, sir! How dare you!
You can't find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don't want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey . You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What's the matter with you?
I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you. You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.
What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members -- on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer.
You haven't said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn't! Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million -- not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now.
I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you. I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,

Every Real American

P.S. I rarely ask that emails be 'passed around'.............

PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR EMAIL LIST......it's past time for all
Americans to wake up!

Ms Kathleen Lyday
Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy. C
Hillsboro , MO 63050

[[636) 944-3291 Phone
[[636) 944-3870 Fax

Why didn't you want to start a new thread? It's obvious you didn't read anything in this thread beyond the word "Obama" in the thread title if you think this incoherent and delusional rant is somehow relevant to what is being discussed here. I suggest posting it on Non-Detroit. Incoherent and delusional fits right in over there.

**aprilgirl33** · June-15-09, 10:52 AM

Sorry bear.

**Novine** · June-15-09, 10:53 AM

Typical right-wing crank rant. Don't like how Obama greeted the Saudis? Check out the lovefest that the Bushies have for the Saudis, a relationship that goes back decades. It's also a good laugh that in the same run-on sentence that the person attacks Obama's lack of historical knowledge they display their complete ignorance of how our system of government works. The President doesn't control the pay of Congress members or their staff. I feel sorry for the parents of any child who has to be exposed to that nut job.

Sorry for feeding the troll. Please return to regularly scheduled programming,

**rjk** · June-15-09, 11:05 AM

This thread has been a pretty interesting read/discussion.

I hope it's not ruined with the hijacking.

You need to take those arguments elsewhere.

**oladub** · June-15-09, 11:24 AM

mjs, Agreed, a substantial reduction in crime would be a sufficient entry point for meadows, and other civic improvements like light rail as well. But if you haven't changed the nature of the criminals or otherwise gotten rid of them, they will still be causing their mischeif. Cutting the grass short and illuminating these fields like a Walmart parking lot or prison yard would reduce their use by criminals but they would just continue gnawing away at the edges of civilization somewhere else and then you would have to turn Harper Woods and Pontiac into lit up and mowed meadows and fields too.
At least Roosevelt spent money he didn't have building hydro-electric projects that have paid for themselves many times over. I'm glad he had enough sense not to plow up bankrupt farms and empty factories with that same money.

**casscorridor** · June-15-09, 11:47 AM

There are very few neighborhoods in the city of Detroit where it possible to completely cut them off. The abandonment is very mixed. There is a few areas where almost every house is gone, but you only have to go a few blocks to find an area that has most of the houses left, or even new houses. So cutting off neighorhoods to me doesn't make sense, it expensive, and requires lots of resources that could be used better. A better strategy would be demolishing homes that are beyond repair, which are scattared thoughout the city, including the "good" areas. All the other land can be used for urban agriculture, but there won't be large swaths of land, for the exception of maybe one or two places, where all buildings are destroyed and land turned back to nature/agriculture.

I think investing in transit will cause development to be concentrated around stations by defult. There won't need to be this resource-intensive attempt to actually move people out of their houses and into new areas. Many folks will want to move to areas around transit stations, which will be neighborhood centers. Hopefully the transit lines can be equitably distributed throughout the city, so it covers most areas. If not, watch neighborhoods outside of the core continue to rot, even if there is some attempt at "planned shrinkage".

Another thing to keep in mind is that although the CITY of Detroit has shrunk in half over the last 50 years, the METRO Detroit has more than doubled in population. We're talking about planned shrinkage of the City, while assuming everyone in the suburbs will remain exactly where they are right now, and that there will be no abandonment of suburban areas. What makes you think that suburbs won't be abondoned radpidly just as the city was 50 years eariler? And how can the city take advantage of a generation trend back into the cities?... population growth isn't far fetched if we can keep some of those 50% of young people who move away from Michigan and get them to move to the city Shrinking the city in some utopic fashion reminincent of eariler "urban renewal" projects is far fetched. If 1 million of the 4 million in suburban detroit moved to the city, that would mean we're already at 1950 population levels... not saying that many people are going to move back, but we should plan for and take the steps neccesary to attain increased population growth, not further decline.

**ghettopalmetto** · June-15-09, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by casscorridor

Another thing to keep in mind is that although the CITY of Detroit has shrunk in half over the last 50 years, the METRO Detroit has more than doubled in population. We're talking about planned shrinkage of the City, while assuming everyone in the suburbs will remain exactly where they are right now, and that there will be no abandonment of suburban areas. What makes you think that suburbs won't be abondoned radpidly just as the city was 50 years eariler?

I agree with you regarding transit being able to concentrate development. A huge problem now, though, is that Detroit simply can't afford to service 139 square miles. Given the ad nauseum discussions regarding the need to permanently remove extremely blighted housing stock, it makes sense to re-shape the city, provided the costs of providing services can be reduced sufficiently to more than cover the costs of any necessary relocations.

For what it's worth, the U.S. Census shows that the Metropolitan Detroit population has remained roughly constant since 1970 [[*not* doubled). Combine this with the trend of rapid sprawl subsidized by the State of Michigan, and there doesn't seem [[unfortunately) much in the way of motivation to "encourage" people to move into the city limits.

A plan for the future is necessary, but some sort of action needs to be taken now so said future plan is actually feasible.

**professorscott** · June-15-09, 12:30 PM

Regarding the thread's main topic: this isn't new, even in Detroit. The former City ombudsman, the late Marie Farrell-Donaldson, proposed this basic idea something like twenty years ago. Of course, the concept was dismissed and laughed off. But why not? We have a city built for two million that houses less than nine hundred thousand, and the City needs to consolidate and reduce every other damned thing, why not infrastructure?

Regarding the "Kathleen Lyday" letter: the person who posted this horseshit referred to Snopes. Well, go check: there is no teacher named Kathleen Lyday who wrote any such letter, nor is there any evidence whatever that such a letter was ever sent to the President. Some crank posted some nonsense on the internet, and imbeciles continue to spread the nonsense around. The usual.

**casscorridor** · June-15-09, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

I agree with you regarding transit being able to concentrate development. A huge problem now, though, is that Detroit simply can't afford to service 139 square miles. Given the ad nauseum discussions regarding the need to permanently remove extremely blighted housing stock, it makes sense to re-shape the city, provided the costs of providing services can be reduced sufficiently to more than cover the costs of any necessary relocations.

This will never happen, what you say. The costs of providing the services will not outweigh the enormeous costs of removing entire neighborhoods --homes, infrastructure, roads, etc-- and what about the benifits: is taking out whole areas of the city and replacing it with "nature" really the best option? Where will the money come from? I think you are underestimating how much such a thing would cost. There is already land all over the city that could be used for agriculture and can be prepared for use with very little money. Tear down houses that are beyond repair, but no need to remove what houses still remain, especially when they are occupied.. Perhpas certian parts of neighborhoods could have some reshaping and have infrastructure removed, but it will be very limited. I think the vision being promoted there is remininicent of the urban renewal of the 1960s, being that it's a vision promoted by a small group of privilaged individuals imposing their will over entire populations.

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

For what it's worth, the U.S. Census shows that the Metropolitan Detroit population has remained roughly constant since 1970 [[*not* doubled). Combine this with the trend of rapid sprawl subsidized by the State of Michigan, and there doesn't seem [[unfortunately) much in the way of motivation to "encourage" people to move into the city limits.

You should check the data on that.

1920 - 1,407,111
1930 - 2,292,528 - +62.9%
1940 - 2,506,530 - +9.3%
1950 - 3,170,315 - +26.5%
1960 - 3,949,720 - +24.6%
1970 - 4,431,390 - +12.2%
1980 - 4,353,413 - -1.8%
1990 - 4,248,699 - -2.4%
2000 - 4,452,588 - +4.8%

So while the population of Detroit since 1950 has dwindled from 1.8 millions residents to now around 900,000 the metro area population increased from 3.2 million to 4.5 million. So about a million or so people moved from Detroit to the suburbs, and an additional million people moved to the metro area as a whole, mostly to the suburbs. If those million would have stayed in the city, and the other million or so moved into the city, we could have had a city of almost 3 million. Now, obviously planning for a city of 3 million now is not realistic, just for the sheer amount of developmet that has taken place in suburban areas for the last 50 years, we can assume many people will not want to abandon the lifestle they are accustom too: mostly older people. The youth of today are alienated by the suburban and american consumer lifestyle, and there is a huge migration into urban areas. Policies of Michigan can be easily changed to give strong incentives to live within urban areas such as Detroit, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Flint. So instead of thinking strictly within the city limits of Detroit, we can think regionally so that all regional development can be concentrated closer to the core, and that there is no further sprawl. I think it is much more reasonable to convert suburban areas back to large-scale farms and nature than it the city of Detroit.

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

A plan for the future is necessary, but some sort of action needs to be taken now so said future plan is actually feasible.

Yes. Action is neccesary, but the plan being proposed in the article is not feasible. And these problems cant be reduced from wide social forces and social institutions [[capitalist/market economics, white supremacy, liberal democracy, patriarchy, imperialism, etc etc) There are many ways to take action. There is legislative and legal action... changing laws that favor sprawl, and suck investment out of urban areas. There is direct action... occupying abandoned and unused land and buildings and putting them back to use. There is economic development... planting gardens and networking them together with community grocery stores. There is intellectual/ideological action... convincing people that change is possible, that a vision for a good society can be attained, that liberalism won't solve the root of our problems and that we need radical action... that revolution is possible within our lifetime

**casscorridor** · June-15-09, 04:33 PM

Also. You have to look at population denisty. Even the least dense parts of Detroit are as dense or denser than the suburbs, such as Troy. I often compare Detroit to Troy because they are the anthesis to each other. What will become of places like that?

**Funaho** · June-15-09, 06:38 PM

Originally Posted by Novine

Why would anything need to be rerouted? They can maintain major water and sewer lines in rural areas. Why not in areas that go back to nature?

Sure they can be maintained, but if the infrastructure is still there and needs maintenance then you haven't really saved anything by decommissioning that area. Also, as I said in my original post, you really don't want disconnected utility lines in areas where it's likely a small problem will go unnoticed until it becomes a BIG problem.

Ideally, with less "dead weight" infrastructure to maintain we can start pumping money into properly maintaining or even rebuilding that infrastructure, some of which is pushing 100 years old.