RSS Feed MenuBack in February, here at FrumForum.com, David Frum argued for downsizing our cities and pulling down homes in abandoned or depopulated neighborhoods:
Think of it as “exurban renewal” – a 21st century counterpart to the slum clearances of the 1940s and 1950s…
Now, the Daily Telegraph reports that the Obama administration is considering plans to bulldoze abandoned neighborhoods in depopulated cities. The strategy, first adopted in Flint, Michigan, would help troubled cities survive by concentrating their services to a smaller, more viable area.
Again, you read it first at FrumForum.com.
barker13 // Jun 13, 2009 at 7:40 am
Bottom line… it sounds like a good idea.(*SHRUG*)BILL
jjv // Jun 13, 2009 at 10:57 am
I’d say its more like a comment from the 60’s “Destroying the village in order to save it.”Urban renewal itself destroyed parts of cities. The question here is when these vacant areas find buyers will the preservationists and the green space people let them be bought and built upon? Or is this freezing these places in amber. Also, parks and green spaces become crime havens unless policed and used. Is there really any savings?
the sleeptard // Jun 15, 2009 at 8:02 am
Every time a house is sold, the transaction generates an average of $46,400 in additional consumer spending on furniture, appliances, moving costs, renovations, services and taxes, according to a study prepared for the Canadian Real Estate Association.It is in the interests of banks, speculators and financial elites to encourage destruction and renewal in the real estate market. Disaster capitalism takes many forms.
sinz54 // Jun 15, 2009 at 8:19 am
jjv: The bulldozed areas are in parts of the nation, like the Rust Belt, that are unlikely to ever return to the glory days.Without the automobile industry, the Rust Belt becomes a ghost town. No other manufacturing industry can sustain the level of income that the auto industry did.So that’s how it should end up: Depopulated, with the skilled worker base moving to other parts of the country where prosperous industries still exist.
sinz54 // Jun 15, 2009 at 8:25 am
What are they going to do about the sewer systems? Those are expensive to maintain. But just leaving them in place, unmaintained, represents a public health hazard–rats bearing all kinds of diseases, cholera, etc.