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Author    Post   untanglingwebs El Supremo Telegraph.co.UK 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 Comments 914 | Comment on this article Previous1 of 3 ImagesNext The US government is 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 Photo: GETTY Headquarters of General Motors Corp. in Detroit Photo: BLOOMBERG NEWS An empty house in Detroit Photo: DEREK BLAIR 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". Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:05 am  Dave Starr F L I N T O I D As I remember it, the original shrink the city plan was to cut off all city services to certain areas in order to "encourage" people to move out of them. _________________ I used to care, but I take a pill for that now. Pushing buttons sure can be fun. When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way. Paddle faster, I hear banjos. Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:17 am  twotap F L I N T O I D quote: In Detroit, shattered by the woes of the US car industry, Oh cmon people were fleeing detroit (and flint )in record numbers long before the auto industry bottomed out. _________________ "If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!! Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:44 am  untanglingwebs El Supremo The key point is is the " US Government and a group of charities" want him to apply what he has learned to other cities. They are focusing on 50 rustbelt cities. Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:48 am  untanglingwebs El Supremo Note Kildee also talks about buying out homeowners Wed Dec 16, 2009 3:05 pm  Gooch F L I N T O I D I feel the "Historic" factor plays into this. I think they found that as a way of forcing people out. If you make everything historic so no one can afford to keep it up, that moves them out in a way that no one forced em out. While some places in Flint, like downtown, have great historic value places mentioned before such as Civic Park and areas north of Hurely have niether not enough houses to gain real historic value or not enough people with enough of an income to maintain the historic upkeep! Wed Dec 16, 2009 3:58 pm  Dave Starr F L I N T O I D quote: untanglingwebs schreef: Note Kildee also talks about buying out homeowners I'll accept 1.25 mil, not a penny less. _________________ I used to care, but I take a pill for that now. Pushing buttons sure can be fun. When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way. Paddle faster, I hear banjos. Wed Dec 16, 2009 5:52 pm  andi03 F L I N T O I D Great, just great.....I already get flack from my relatives in England about being from the Flint area...I'll probably get an e-mail in the next couple of days about this article....sigh. Wed Dec 16, 2009 5:56 pm  Dave Starr F L I N T O I D Just tell them only the strongest & toughest live here. _________________ I used to care, but I take a pill for that now. Pushing buttons sure can be fun. When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way. Paddle faster, I hear banjos. Wed Dec 16, 2009 6:07 pm  untanglingwebs El Supremo This from a man with a kitten as a mascot Wed Dec 16, 2009 6:49 pm  andi03 F L I N T O I D Nah, webbie, that's the ceiling cat if you ever follow lolcats.com.... He'd have to show the basement cat which is the equivalent to the devil at the lolcats site. Wed Dec 16, 2009 7:05 pm  Adam F L I N T O I D Good thing we protect those poor black people in cities from evil greedy job providers or they might not have incentive to stay out in the suburbs where they can get plenty of white high school graduates for the same minimum wage they would be required to pay the less educated and affluent dropouts. Wed Dec 16, 2009 11:27 pm  back again F L I N T O I D so, adam your on your "black" thing again today? _________________ even a small act of goodness may be a tiny raft of salvation across the treacherous gulf of sin, but one who drinks the wine of selfishness, and dances on the little boat of meaness, sinks in the ocean of ignorance. P.Y. Wed Dec 16, 2009 11:33 pm  Adam F L I N T O I D I like to put things in the simplest terms possible but poor whites in cities also get screwed over. Cities are more efficient but it makes sense to avoid the cities if you can get better workers for the same rate in the suburbs which is why it's time for the USSA to tear itself down even more under the leadership of people like the Kildee clan. Wed Dec 16, 2009 11:41 pm  andi03 F L I N T O I D Adam, do you realize that there is a major paradigm shift going on, even out in the "affluent" zip codes? The "affluent" zip codes also pay minimum wage. I will be starting a full time job just above minimum wage, working a part time job right now at minimum wage and on call for two other very part time jobs making above minimum wage....remember I am white and can eat a 1/2 lb hamburger at the White Horse. Thu Dec 17, 2009 5:31 am    Display posts from previous:   All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First

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