Flint MI Considers Officially Abandoning Parts of City

[audrey_girl]

Re: Flint MI Considers Officially Abandoning Parts of City

I've been thinking about this, looking at some of the derelict areas in some cities. Why not just bulldoze it, clear the land, and it's just grass instead of having to worry about a house being there.

We could even call it a greenbelt and get Uncle Al (Gore) and President Hollywood to dedicate it to global warming, eh global cooling, eh climate change -

oh yea - climate change - thats a good one - the presstitutes and sheeple will sure go for that one!


;)

[LargoWinch]

Re: Flint MI Considers Officially Abandoning Parts of City

When will this country wake up? Where is the outrage? Why are people from Flint not picketing everyday?

The day the currency is as valuable as toilet paper.

[Spartacus]

Re: Flint MI Considers Officially Abandoning Parts of City

does the US have any programs to turn land back to federal parkland?

[cjppjc]

Re: Flint MI Considers Officially Abandoning Parts of City

does the US have any programs to turn land back to federal parkland?

And what, sell it to the Chinese?

[Spartacus]

Re: Flint MI Considers Officially Abandoning Parts of City

why bulldoze?

I'm sure some structures will stick around & be useful for various animals

Or why not sell the houses individually to firefighter training schools?

I've been thinking about this, looking at some of the derelict areas in some cities. Why not just bulldoze it, clear the land, and it's just grass instead of having to worry about a house being there.

[BrianL]

Re: Flint MI Considers Officially Abandoning Parts of City

I assume they don't want to provide shelter to various unsavory characters who would take up shop there. The animals aren't the problem - its the people who prefer to live outside the city or who have no choice that they don't want as neighbors.

I assume anything that eliminates the use of abandon parts of the city as shelter would suit them.

[reallife]

Re: Flint MI Considers Officially Abandoning Parts of City

does the US have any programs to turn land back to federal parkland?

Interesting that you ask that question... This is a local problem that should be solved locally. Back in my hometown, there was a pretty large area of blighted homes that were abandoned to the drug dealers and criminal types. The solution was for the city to buy up several blocks of this neighborhood, bulldoze the site and and combine that area with an existing decrepit city park. Then create a mini-golf course and rehabilitate the area for urban recreation. The golf course was scaled down to a size suitable more for older school age kids and to urban officeworkers during lunch hour and work breaks. There wasn't enough land for a 9 or 18 hole course so I think they put in just 3 holes and made the fairways shorter. The idea is that you can run over there for a few quick holes and get back to work in an hour or so. They rehabilitated the rest of the park with an exercise trail and created a nice park that was easily accessible and made very good use of an urban blighted zone for very little money.

As a nation there are about 18 million vacant housing units many of which will never be re-occupied. Many of these properties are located in urban blight zones. The solution above is very forward looking and solves two problems: what to do with blighted neighborhoods that cost skyrocketing dollars to provide city services and how to develop humane outdoor recreation sites in densely populated urban areas where available land is scarce, for relatively little money.

[zoog]

US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

Apparently bulldozing the abandoned outskirts of Flint is such a good idea they're thinking about taking the show on a national tour.

telegraph.co.uk

The 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.

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 local authority has restored the city's attractive but formerly deserted centre but has pulled down 1,100 abandoned homes in outlying areas [of Flint].

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.