It doesn't matter if the city rebuilt the houses. That's another lesson from 50 years of urban renewal: once you destroy a community, it doesn't come back. You can rebuild the houses, but it would be like a fresh subdivision: full of strangers. It would take years, maybe decades, for an actual community to form there.
Plus, I'll bet you fifty bucks that under New London's present building codes, you couldn't legally rebuild that neighborhood. If the area doesn't remain a weed-strewn lot for the next 20 years (a distinct possibility), some other developer will probably buy it for a pittance and then build the usual suburban crap--shopping center, garden apartments, oceans of parking.
Alyeska wrote:It wouldn't surprise me that the council still fails to see their fault in this and I bet you they blame the home owners for causing these delays.
That's a given. I can't remember a single government, at any level, taking responsibility for an urban renewal project gone wrong. Twenty years from now, when nobody from the present city council is still in office, sure, then they'll say "that was probably a bad idea", but not now. It's always up to the next generation to fix the messes caused by the previous generation's bright ideas.
