http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100308/ap_on_bi_ge/us_downsizing_detroit Wow. Just -- WOW. I've driven around/through that festering shithole of a city and have always wondered if something like this would ever happen. I often wondered if an American city ever tear down abandoned neighborhoods and shrink itself. Overall, I think this is fantastic. Get rid of the blight and become concerned for the citizens. This goes with my thread in the Science/Technology forum concerning high speed rail. It's high time the US realize that dependency on the automobile, along with the urban sprawl it creates, leads to something like what's happening in, of all places, Detroit Michigan. Thoughts?
About time. There's no way that Detroit will ever be able to maintain the property inside it's city limits now. Might as well shrink things down to a manageable area.
Why won't Omni Consumer Products buy the festering crap and turn it into Delta City, patrolled by Robocop...
I believe Detroit is actually following in the footsteps of one of their Rust Belt cousins: Flint, Michigan began this process about a year ago, if I'm recalling correctly. Now, if we can only convince somewhere like Phoenix to start shrinking...
Its sounds good as long as the people who live in a area that is going to be pulled down get another house or get enough money to buy another house and don't just end up on the streets.
This plan sounds expensive. How can the city possibly afford this? Oh, now I get it. More spending of money we don't have. Screw Detroit.
^ The alternative is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain infrastructure that isn't being used. If that land is no longer urban, there's 40 sq. miles which no longer need water pipes, an extensive power grid, road maintenance, schools, police coverage, etc. Long term, it's probably a money-saving proposal.
Not to mention squatters, urban blight/pollution, roving gangs, etc. Nope, it's time to remove the sprawl and intelligently plan a city.
Why not rent the land to movie companies? It'd be perfect for post-apocalyptic action flicks, Escape from New York-type movies, anything requiring vast swaths of urban ruin. They could just abandon the land and let the buildings decay -- the dirtier and more dilapidated, the better!
Do you really think there are that many movie companies that need abandoned urban areas to shoot in? Again, we're talking 40 square miles, here. That's a massive amount of land. I'm sure that one square mile preserved would be enough for these purposes.
Yes, I was being facetious, but there's a grain of sense in the idea, don't you think? Like selling houses near airports to deaf people.