Dozens of U.S. cities to raze themselves

[Ace Pace]

The telegraph.

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".

I have to admit I'm suprised at these actions, but I guess theres no choice when the neighborhoods turn into high crime neighborhoods and such.

[Darth Wong]

That's an excellent idea, and a potential growth industry in a hypothetical "de-sprawling" future, if it should ever come to pass. If you can reclaim urbanized landscape into nature areas, you can beautify sparsely populated areas and dramatically increase the value of the properties which remain.

[Kodiak]

That's an excellent idea, and a potential growth industry in a hypothetical "de-sprawling" future, if it should ever come to pass. If you can reclaim urbanized landscape into nature areas, you can beautify sparsely populated areas and dramatically increase the value of the properties which remain.

I honestly can't see a downside to this plan:

1. Jobs are created during the demolition/restoration process.
2. Land returns to nature
3. Property values increase
4. The town can then expand responsibly as people return.

All there is to it is for people to swallow their pride and admit that their city needs to be smaller than it is.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Probably long overdue considering that cities like Flint and Detroit are rather depopulated. Organized destruction of areas that no longer serve a purpose allows some form of a "reboot" for them.

All there is to it is for people to swallow their pride and admit that their city needs to be smaller than it is.

I think in the case of a city like Detroit, it's rather that either no one wants to admit the city has more or less fallen apart in many areas and is in serious need of redevelopment, or they only just realised that the city will continue to be a drain on resources unless something is done to clean it up.

[Darth Wong]

It can even be done on a spot basis, rather than reclaiming entire regions. Smaller pieces of land could be "reclaimed" even right in the middle of existing suburbs, to create parks and nature areas. Some older cities were designed with this in mind from Day One (like New York, which had a huge area set aside for Central Park from its early days), unlike typical modern suburbs which were mostly laid out as horrible mind-numbing endless seas of residential property as far as the eye can see.

[tim31]

Haven't most major cities in former european colonies got large parks near the cbd? Every Australian capital has a Queen's Domain, and Adelaide is half parks! Actually, funny I should mention Adelaide in light of the OP, as one of its satellite suburbs, Elizabeth, has been in decline due to ths shutdown of auto manufacturing...

[Darth Wong]

Haven't most major cities in former european colonies got large parks near the cbd? Every Australian capital has a Queen's Domain, and Adelaide is half parks! Actually, funny I should mention Adelaide in light of the OP, as one of its satellite suburbs, Elizabeth, has been in decline due to ths shutdown of auto manufacturing...

Major cities typically do have space set aside for parks, but newer suburbs tend to have very little space set aside for greenery. Whatever space they do have is sort of like the windshield washer fluid bottle in your car: it snakes around the important parts in whatever extra spaces they could find. They don't dedicate big blocks of territory for that purpose.

[tim31]

The engine bay analogy is a very good one when you compare how a 300+ci V8 fits into a 1960's era Mustang or Camaro, to how a 2.0 litre four-cylinder goes into a modern hatch or sedan. Of course, the modern car's frontage is also set up as a buffer zone... Just like the poorer suburbs are for the wealthier ones further away from industry.

[Broomstick]

While I agree there are many good points to this plan, and in many ways I even support it, there are a few downsides.

1) It costs money to tear stuff down. A city like Detroit or Flint or, more personally, Gary, Indiana (where I live) is already broke. We have tornado damage and flood damage from almost a year ago that is STILL not cleaned up. Garbage collection has been reduced because, to put it bluntly, the city can't afford to employ the garbage collectors full time anymore. Where does the money come from?

2) The last to move out are those least able to move out. Who is going to move the disabled, the senior citizens, the others who have no money and no means to move out of the last inhabited house on the block?

3) Where do the displaced go? As neighborhoods are abandoned the remaining homes lose value and at some point become unsellable - do you then take those houses away, leaving people with nothing? Where will they go to live? With the loss of their greatest asset (the house) they will no longer have the resources to buy a house in a better neighborhood (one with less crime, better infrastructure, however you define it) because the prices are so much higher. Many suburbs are short of rental property.

It's easy to say knock down the bad neighborhoods and start over, but few of those blocks are truly empty of people. Remember, there is no social safety net to speak of in the US. Government subsidized housing in my area has a ten year waiting list, where the lists aren't "closed" (effectively meaning the wait is infinite).

Razing a city to make a park accomplishes little if the result are thousands of more people living in homeless shelters, or sleeping in the new park because they have nowhere else to go.

Again, I fully support knocking down derelict and burned out structures, but unless there is an effective relocation program such actions can do as much harm as good.

[CmdrWilkens]

In regards to 2 and 3 it sounds like, from the way the article presents it, that the plan is to initially purchase large blocks of housing in modest and servicable neighborhoods then re-locate homeowners in sections to be demolished into these neighborhoods. While it has the faint echo of forced re-location the practice would allow cities to move residents into neighborhoods where it can (and does) provide services prior to tearing down neighborhoods where it can't (or where it would be extremely inefficient to do so). If the homeowners of properties to be demolished are moved with city help into new locations in higher density neighborhoods where their property could maintain some of its value better then the city may be able to pay for the moves by combination of reduced service costs and better property taxes on remaining structures.

[Elfdart]

We had something similar in Fort Worth several years ago, where the Ripley-Arnold public housing ghettos (which is exactly what they were) downtown were torn down, along with a number of dilapidated buildings. The city actually saved money by paying for the tenants to move to other apartment complexes, which were much nicer and weren't magnets for hoodlums. This doesn't include the money saved by not having the police and ambulances deployed to Ripley-Arnold on a constant basis.

The only difference is that Tandy bought the real estate and built their new office headquarters there and spruced up the riverbank nearby. I think Flint is onto something and I think it would be good for other cities to follow suit, especially in areas where property taxes are the main source of money for the government.

[Memnon]

It seems to me that a (very small) part of the demolition costs could be covered by recovering valuable materials like copper piping and wiring from the demolished areas. People would probably have to be paid to do this, but thieves steal this kind of equipment all the time, so it has to be lucrative to a limited degree.

EDIT:
At least in the Philadelphia area, the suburbs tend to be clustered around old towns which have been around for quite a while, with some fairly old forests and parks in between the towns. In other words, Wong is pretty much right about parks and suburbs.

[Broomstick]

It seems to me that a (very small) part of the demolition costs could be covered by recovering valuable materials like copper piping and wiring from the demolished areas. People would probably have to be paid to do this, but thieves steal this kind of equipment all the time, so it has to be lucrative to a limited degree.

The thieves in my area are so efficient that these materials are largely gone from such places. I kid you not. Some parts of Gary the aluminum siding and gutters get stolen off houses even while people are living there and present inside them. We've had thieves electrocuted while trying to steal the wiring out of street lights or stealing electrical transformers from the local utilities - while the transformers are in use. I fear that there may not be enough salvagables left to cover any costs.

[Memnon]

It seems to me that a (very small) part of the demolition costs could be covered by recovering valuable materials like copper piping and wiring from the demolished areas. People would probably have to be paid to do this, but thieves steal this kind of equipment all the time, so it has to be lucrative to a limited degree.

The thieves in my area are so efficient that these materials are largely gone from such places. I kid you not. Some parts of Gary the aluminum siding and gutters get stolen off houses even while people are living there and present inside them. We've had thieves electrocuted while trying to steal the wiring out of street lights or stealing electrical transformers from the local utilities - while the transformers are in use. I fear that there may not be enough salvagables left to cover any costs.

That certainly seems like a problem :S
However, I think there is bound to be materials locked up on the insides of the houses, where thieves can't get to them.
Even things like stoves will have some salvageable metals.
On a related note, how easy would it be to identify and collect such items after burning versus before? Soot could be a problem if the housing is razed before searching.

[Broomstick]

However, I think there is bound to be materials locked up on the insides of the houses, where thieves can't get to them.

What makes you think locks present an obstacle to these people?

[Elfdart]

It seems to me that a (very small) part of the demolition costs could be covered by recovering valuable materials like copper piping and wiring from the demolished areas. People would probably have to be paid to do this, but thieves steal this kind of equipment all the time, so it has to be lucrative to a limited degree.

The thieves in my area are so efficient that these materials are largely gone from such places. I kid you not. Some parts of Gary the aluminum siding and gutters get stolen off houses even while people are living there and present inside them. We've had thieves electrocuted while trying to steal the wiring out of street lights or stealing electrical transformers from the local utilities - while the transformers are in use. I fear that there may not be enough salvagables left to cover any costs.

Last July they sawed down a telephone pole and stole 120 yards of thick copper cable from the lot next to my house. No one noticed until I tried to use my computer and phone.

[Memnon]

However, I think there is bound to be materials locked up on the insides of the houses, where thieves can't get to them.

What makes you think locks present an obstacle to these people?

It's not that I think locks are an obstacle;
it's that I think that things inside floors and such like piping components aren't as easy to fence as wiring, and can still be recycled.
Same goes for some appliances which are too troublesome to remove.

[Broomstick]

In that case you are mistaken. Smashing into walls and floors and ceilings is not hard - I've done it myself and I'm not particularly big or strong (I will also note that I was working for the owner under the supervision of licensed contractor on a legal job, I was not being a vandal). Appliance too cumbersome to move? Smash it apart in place.

This pictures are far from the worst examples:

[ExarKun]

Those abandoned places must be a paradise for kids to grow up in. So much adventure can be found in abandoned buildings. All that kids nowadays know is their room, music, and xbox

[Simon_Jester]

The catch, of course, is that they're also a paradise for criminals... which means they aren't a safe place for children to adventure.

[RedImperator]

Those abandoned places must be a paradise for kids to grow up in. So much adventure can be found in abandoned buildings. All that kids nowadays know is their room, music, and xbox

Oh yeah. You never know what treasures you'll find in an abandoned house in a dying city. Piles of dirty needles, perhaps. Or drunk hobos. Maybe a crack den. If they're real lucky, they'll have an adventure, like getting trapped in a fire set by an arsonist or falling through a hole left by a scavenger or getting caught in a gunfight when one gang raids another gang's crackhouse. And when they get a little older, the boys can play "Hide from the police", which is like jailbreak, except if you get caught, you go to actual jail, and "Ambush a rival gang member" in them, which is like tag, except with guns. Sometimes the girls play along, too, but some of them prefer "give head for drugs", a perennial favorite. Course, you know how it is with girls. They get to be teenagers and they lose interest in the rough-and-tumble; a lot of them prefer to stay home and play "have a baby before graduating high middle school". That game's real popular.

Definitely the worst place in the first world a great place to be a kid.

[FSTargetDrone]

Speaking of Detroit, large retailers are abandoning the city:

JUNE 16, 2009

Retailers Head for Exits in Detroit

Shopping Becomes a Challenge as Auto-Industry Collapse Adds to City's Woes

By ANDREW GROSSMAN

DETROIT -- They call this the Motor City, but you have to leave town to buy a Chrysler or a Jeep.

Borders Inc. was founded 40 miles away, but the only one of the chain's bookstores here closed this month. And Starbucks Corp., famous for saturating U.S. cities with its storefronts, has only four left in this city of 900,000 after closures last summer.

There was a time early in the decade when downtown Detroit was sprouting new cafes and shops, and residents began to nurture hopes of a rebound. But lately, they are finding it increasingly tough to buy groceries or get a cup of fresh-roast coffee as the 11th largest U.S. city struggles with the recession and the auto-industry crisis.

No national grocery chain operates a store here. A lack of outlets that sell fresh produce and meat has led the United Food and Commercial Workers union and a community group to think about building a grocery store of its own.

One of the few remaining bookstores is the massive used-book outlet John K. King has operated out of an abandoned glove factory since 1983. But Mr. King is considering moving his operations to the suburbs.

Last week, Lochmoor Chrysler Jeep on Detroit's East Side stopped selling Chrysler products, one of the 789 franchises Chrysler Group LLC is dropping from its retail network. It was Detroit's last Chrysler Jeep store.

"The lack of retail is one of the biggest challenges the city faces," said James Bieri, president of Bieri Co., a Detroit-based real-estate brokerage. "Trying to understand how to get it to come back will be one of the most important keys to its resurgence -- if it ever has one."

Detroit's woes are largely rooted in the collapse of the auto industry. General Motors Corp., one of downtown's largest employers and the last of the Big Three auto makers with its headquarters here, has drastically cut white-collar workers and been offered incentives to move to the suburbs. Other local businesses that serviced the auto maker, from ad agencies and accounting firms to newsstands and shoe-shine outlets, also have been hurt.

The city's 22.8% unemployment rate is among the highest in the U.S.; 30% of residents are on food stamps.

"As the city loses so much, the tax base shrinks and the city has to cut back services," said Margaret Dewar, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan. That causes such hassles for retailers as longer police-response times, as well as less-frequent snow plowing and trash pickup.

While all of southeast Michigan is hurting because of the auto-industry's troubles, Detroit's problems are compounded by decades of flight to the suburbs.

Hundreds of buildings were left vacant by the nearly one million residents who have left. Thousands of businesses have closed since the city's population peaked six decades ago.

Navigating zoning rules and other red tape to develop land for big-box stores that might cater to a low-income clientele is daunting.

The lack of grocery stores is especially problematic. The last two mainstream chain groceries closed in 2007, when The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. sold most of the southeast Michigan stores in its Farmer Jack chain to Kroger Corp., which declined to purchase the chain's two Detroit locations, causing them to close.

A 2007 study found that more than half of Detroit residents had to travel twice as far to reach a grocery store than a fast-food outlet or convenience store.

Michelle Robinson, 42 years old, does most of her shopping at big-box stores in the suburbs. When visitors staying at the hotel near her downtown office ask where to shop, she sends them to a mall in Dearborn, 12 miles away.

A few retailers are thriving. Family Dollar Stores Inc. has opened 25 outlets since 2003. A handful of independent coffee shops and a newly opened Tim Horton's franchise cater to workers downtown.

Discount grocer Aldi Inc. opened stores in the city in 2001 and 2005. A spokeswoman said the chain is "very bullish" on Detroit. Farmer's markets draw crowds looking for fresh produce.

Olga Stella, an official at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, works to persuade businesses to move to the city. She says companies have underestimated Detroit's economic potential and that Aldi and Family Dollar are proof there's money to be made here.

Meanwhile, the former Lochmoor Chrysler Jeep is now Lochmoor Automotive Group, a used-car dealership and repair shop. Gina Russo, daughter of the dealer's longtime owner, is being groomed to take over the family business. She has agreed to start selling small pickup trucks made by India's Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A3

[Starglider]

In that case you are mistaken. Smashing into walls and floors and ceilings is not hard - I've done it myself and I'm not particularly big or strong

This is another reason why I don't like flimsy US 'stick built' construction. Knocking through a brick+concrete block double wall is much harder; even chipping plaster and conduit away to expose wiring is a lot more tedious than just tearing out sections of wallboard. You very rarely see the kind of building damage in those pictures here (in the UK).

[ExarKun]

The catch, of course, is that they're also a paradise for criminals... which means they aren't a safe place for children to adventure.

true true

In that case you are mistaken. Smashing into walls and floors and ceilings is not hard - I've done it myself and I'm not particularly big or strong

This is another reason why I don't like flimsy US 'stick built' construction. Knocking through a brick+concrete block double wall is much harder; even chipping plaster and conduit away to expose wiring is a lot more tedious than just tearing out sections of wallboard. You very rarely see the kind of building damage in those pictures here (in the UK).

Considering the amount of hurricanes there are in the US, you'd think they'd make their houses of something more than wood/cheap wallboard. I was always amazed that a little wind can take off a house

Those abandoned places must be a paradise for kids to grow up in. So much adventure can be found in abandoned buildings. All that kids nowadays know is their room, music, and xbox

Oh yeah. You never know what treasures you'll find in an abandoned house in a dying city. Piles of dirty needles, perhaps. Or drunk hobos. Maybe a crack den. If they're real lucky, they'll have an adventure, like getting trapped in a fire set by an arsonist or falling through a hole left by a scavenger or getting caught in a gunfight when one gang raids another gang's crackhouse. And when they get a little older, the boys can play "Hide from the police", which is like jailbreak, except if you get caught, you go to actual jail, and "Ambush a rival gang member" in them, which is like tag, except with guns. Sometimes the girls play along, too, but some of them prefer "give head for drugs", a perennial favorite. Course, you know how it is with girls. They get to be teenagers and they lose interest in the rough-and-tumble; a lot of them prefer to stay home and play "have a baby before graduating high middle school". That game's real popular.

Definitely the worst place in the first world a great place to be a kid.

Have you been watching too many movies or spent you childhood in front of a computer/tv? Yeah, there is crime, but it can't be like you describe it at all. Way to use every possible stereotype imaginable, and some stuff, like "ambush a rival gang member' and "hide from the police" is just moronic

[Broomstick]

Considering the amount of hurricanes there are in the US, you'd think they'd make their houses of something more than wood/cheap wallboard. I was always amazed that a little wind can take off a house

Strictly a cost-effectiveness equation. Is it more effective to build homes that can withstand the worst hurricanes, or to rebuild after a big storm?

Of course, MOST of the US territory doesn't have hurricanes. We certainly don't have hurricanes where I live, we're too far inland. By the time they reach us they're "mere" tropical storms. Of course, we do get tornadoes - the weather system that rolled through last night generated at least four across three states. However, characterizing them as "a little wind" is way off base. Unless you consider weather phenomena that generate up to a 480 kph "breeze" as "a little wind". Truth is, tornadoes are quite capable of demolishing buildings built of brick and steel.

For that matter, my area has seen straight-line winds better than 140 kph in the past year - and oddly enough, most structures, even those of wood and cheap wallboard survived it, the exceptions being the ones that had large trees fall on them. Where do you live that that is a "little wind"?