Michigan to receive $100M to demolish vacant homes

[DetroitPlanner]

I'm not opposed to demolitions, but I don't exactly understand the end-game. It's not like demolitions do anything positive for the surrounding neighborhoods or help prevent future abandonment.

Is the end-game just a giant meadow from 8 Mile to the river? I just don't see where this is headed. Try living next to squatting drugged out hookers who constantly try to steal your water and electricity while you try to deny them access to it because they will never go away if you do. Its not fun.

I don't have a better solution, though. Maybe just highly targeted demolitions? Or more efforts at preventing abandonment in the first place?

Try living next to a home that needs to be torn down. They become magnets for blight, illegal activity, and vermin. Try living next to squatting drugged out hookers who are intent on stealing your water and electricity while you are intent on starving them from it in hopes they will leave. Its not fun.

Some of the currently abandoned homes can be saved and rehabilitated, but from an economic perspective, that number is very small. You will sink way more money into it than you will ever get out of it. If it was true that these homes were valuable, then the market would have picked them up long ago.