US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

This shit ain't possible.... they want to reduce the area where we can live until we're all in big cities and we depend on government...



they did that when they implemented a minimum amount of time a woman could get assistance for children. It meant that all those rural homeowners had to move to the city to start finding descent wages to actually raise a family.

it's an evil plot to make land grabs available for the wealthy and the internationalists...and I think Hulu is behind it all

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".

[link to www.telegraph.co.uk]

Remember this .....NO community can work unless the people believe in it and love living there. Community has more to do with the intangibles FIRST than it has to do with the tangible. Faith it what you are doing and living in is paramount to a sound community. It is true for a country. It is true for a community. It is true for a world.


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Again you are right. There is no demand for these so called houses, and thus their destruction will not affect prices of livable homes. What is affecting prices for livable housing is a detiorating demand due to job loss, low wages, and burdensome debts.

AMERICA, A THIRD WORLD CESSPIT.

It's right out of "Brave new world".

I've been saying it'll happen for a while, soon you'll live in the super wal*mart mega complex highrise, and most of North America will return to a preserve.

I mean it's RIGHT OUT OF THE BOOK!

I think this is a great idea, I'm all for it.

Can we start with Washington DC and the Wall Street area of NYC?

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".

[link to www.telegraph.co.uk]

Naw. They should leave the ruins of failed American cities for visitors from some future millennium to gawk at, like the Greek ruins.

Or just let them continue to devolve into some Mad Max style wastelands, occupied by bands of marauding gangs - oh, wait, that's already happening.

And with homeless people this makes less sense. Obama is an FAIL.

to a certain degree cities are like dinosaurs whoes time is past so as time goes on as i have seen this coming the only option is it will fall down slowly or be torn down fast= i would go the fast route myself as some open space with trees and such would give off some much needed oxagen O2 i think and everyone would breath easier= much needed.

I'm a Republican but I support this. Some parts of the cities that have no growth and much decline deserved to be razed completely. Why keep funding some parts of a city that see no growth and more blight in the last several years? It's a big waste of taxpayer money. Why should Michigan taxpayers have to keep paying taxes to keep like Flint and Detroit going? Raze it and return the land to nature OR sell the land to highest bidders who are willing to put forth investments to connect that part to the rest of the city for future growth.

"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."

gotta love that last name. so is he saying that the poor being shoveled out will be able to afford rent in the more affluent neighborhoods? or is he saying that people can still live in the nature once the town is bulldozed?
saying that the town will be bulldozed but people aren't being forced to move is an odd sentence.

This is the preface to rounding up the inmates for Camp FEMA.

Remember this .....NO community can work unless the people believe in it and love living there. Community has more to do with the intangibles FIRST than it has to do with the tangible. Faith it what you are doing and living in is paramount to a sound community. It is true for a country. It is true for a community. It is true for a world.


*


---V---


Again you are right. There is no demand for these so called houses, and thus their destruction will not affect prices of livable homes. What is affecting prices for livable housing is a detiorating demand due to job loss, low wages, and burdensome debts.



I like this thread. This is a good thread.

Community building is huge in importance.


I wonder what kind of community the GLP crowd can build LOL ...with the conservatives and the "hippies, liberals and freakos" LOL ...Hey as long as we all get along right ? : )


can i be the reverend ?


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