US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

by **cudabachi** » Fri 12 Jun 2009, 19:37:16

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina ... rvive.html

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.

by **Sixstrings** » Fri 12 Jun 2009, 20:47:56

Swell.. we can send all the lumber and other scrap to China I guess. They got our jobs, may as well have our bones too.

by **Tanada** » Fri 12 Jun 2009, 21:08:01

This is as smart as Bush saying we must destroy Capitalism to save it, or LeMay saying we had to destroy the village to protect it from the Commies.

by **smallpoxgirl** » Fri 12 Jun 2009, 21:44:39

Have you guys ever been to Flint? Large sections of the city are returning to nature whether you like it or not. I'd rather drive the average forest service road than the average city street in Flint. Exerting some control about how the implosion happens could make a lot of sense.

by **TWilliam** » Fri 12 Jun 2009, 21:54:12

What if, rather than simply 'returning' such areas 'to nature', people were permitted to farm them, but only if they did so using permaculture principles (training and startup support provided of course)?

That's likely what will happen eventually anyway, but why not encourage it, rather than waiting until systems break down to the point where it can no longer be prevented? Kinda like what Cuba did...

by **Caffeine** » Fri 12 Jun 2009, 21:54:23

And all those newly/recently homeless people in tents...

Didn't they let crops rot on the fields or some such during the Great Depression, to keep food prices inflated? Wouldn't this be somewhat similar?

by **smallpoxgirl** » Fri 12 Jun 2009, 22:37:41

TWilliam wrote:What if, rather than simply 'returning' such areas 'to nature', people were permitted to farm them, but only if they did so using permaculture principles (training and startup support provided of course)?

That's likely what will happen eventually anyway, but why not encourage it, rather than waiting until systems break down to the point where it can no longer be prevented? Kinda like what Cuba did...

Sounds great. IMHO though, it would take some serious effort I think to get the residents of Flint interested in farming anything except maybe ganga. There's a serious culture of helplessness that develops in communities like that and can be very hard to break. The other major issue in Flint is that it was formerly the home to a lot of heavy industry. I'm not sure how much of the land would be safe to grow food on. Might be a lot of nasty stuff in the soil.

by **Nefarious** » Fri 12 Jun 2009, 23:32:18

Caffeine wrote:
Didn't they let crops rot on the fields or some such during the Great Depression, to keep food prices inflated?

No the food was left to rot in the field because they weren't offered enough money for the crops.

The ironic thing about the depression is that while thousands of people were starving in cities, the farmers had more food than they could sell. However, the consumers didn't have enough money to buy a lot of food. As consumer demand shrunk, prices for farmer's products fell. Sometimes farmers could not even afford to pay the freight to send their livestock to market. This left the farmers with no choice but to shoot and bury their livestock and to let their crops rot in the fields.

EDIT: Something to think about for those that say cities will be better off. History says otherwise.

by **jasonraymondson** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 00:02:36

Under George the 3rd

Create a false flag event to rally the country in support of war

Use the false flag event to remove the rights of its citizens

Allow the banking industry untold leeway in order to start a financial collapse.

Further enrage hostilities against the US, causing it's citizens to fear for its safety.

Under Barack the 1st

Further destroy the economy

Concentrate the population to tightly controlled areas

Further perpetuate the fearful mindset started by predecessor.

Coming soon

Fully regulate the internet and require tracking and recording of all content sent and received by each user.

Take away most if not all handguns and rifles not used for the sole purpose of hunting.

Verichip the public

Bush meat disease the population.

by **TWilliam** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 00:07:13

smallpoxgirl wrote:Sounds great. IMHO though, it would take some serious effort I think to get the residents of Flint interested in farming anything except maybe ganga. There's a serious culture of helplessness that develops in communities like that and can be very hard to break. The other major issue in Flint is that it was formerly the home to a lot of heavy industry. I'm not sure how much of the land would be safe to grow food on. Might be a lot of nasty stuff in the soil.

Sadly, probably true. The land would most likely need a number of years of intense remediation (again tho', I think permaculture methods might prove useful) before the soil would be safe for food production. And it would probably require drawing people from out of the area with a strong desire to perform such reclamation, as well as some strong fiscal incentives to get them to come, especially since they couldn't earn any form of living from the land for some years.

Still, it's an idea...

by **Hermes** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 03:03:43

They're going to bulldoze Baltimore???

Sweet!

by **mos6507** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 07:52:50

Something to think about here is if we actually did institute a population reduction plan that things like this would have to happen anyway as the population contracts. Nobody's ever really thought about managing negative growth. It's about time we plan this out.

by **ian807** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 08:53:48

It's a reasonable adaptation to circumstance. As far as permaculture goes, I suggest the "food park" idea. Dig a grid of canals in the reclaimed areas. In the unflooded islands, plant food crops that requires little or no cultivation (e.g nut trees, fruit trees, cattails, potatoes and whatever else grows well in that ecological zone). Hands off to the public for a few years until naturally occurring food crops become established. After that, it's a food park. The public comes in, harvests, stores food for the winter and fewer people starve.

It tends to favor the industrious and those who think ahead. What doesn't?

by **Ayoob** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 09:14:32

If by "survive" you mean "abandon to be reclaimed by nature" then I suppose it works.

by **mos6507** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 09:16:55

So is the food free? The public "comes in and harvests". Who decides how much food per person? It's an all you can eat buffet? Is there really going to be so much surplus for that to work? You need strict control over this otherwise the food forest would be picked clean in no time. That's one of the problems I have with the CSA model. It's okay as a "hobby" for a small group of people when the supermarkets are bursting at the seams, but if people are literally living subsistence off a remote patch someplace, what are the odds someone else isn't going to come by and gobble your crop? If you aren't going to be there to protect it, someone you trust better damn well do it. Once the crop's gone, catching the perp won't matter because you're as good as dead.

by **Tanada** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 09:50:43

smallpoxgirl wrote:Have you guys ever been to Flint? Large sections of the city are returning to nature whether you like it or not. I'd rather drive the average forest service road than the average city street in Flint. Exerting some control about how the implosion happens could make a lot of sense.

Actually I have, spent two long weekends there in 2007 to take in the horse races and the museums. There is a huge difference IMO between letting nature take back territory and actively declaring a full area bulldozer worthy. With travel becoming more expensive I thought the solution was supposed to be regathering in urban concentrations. Can't do that if we bulldoze it all down now can we?

by **vision-master** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 10:09:20

smallpoxgirl wrote:
TWilliam wrote:What if, rather than simply 'returning' such areas 'to nature', people were permitted to farm them, but only if they did so using permaculture principles (training and startup support provided of course)?
That's likely what will happen eventually anyway, but why not encourage it, rather than waiting until systems break down to the point where it can no longer be prevented? Kinda like what Cuba did...
Sounds great. IMHO though, it would take some serious effort I think to get the residents of Flint interested in farming anything except maybe ganga. There's a serious culture of helplessness that develops in communities like that and can be very hard to break. The other major issue in Flint is that it was formerly the home to a lot of heavy industry. I'm not sure how much of the land would be safe to grow food on. Might be a lot of nasty stuff in the soil.

Ganga would be a nice cash crop.

by **MarkJ** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 10:58:00

Many of the poor, blighted sections of cities should have been leveled decades ago when the cost of demolition, backfill, hauling, landfill fees, lead/asbestos abatement and toxic waste disposal was substantially less money, when codes & regulations weren't as strict, or weren't enforced.

The government, state and local funding they're pumping into some of these regions through renovation grants, new construction grants, construction of public subsidized housing, public assistance money for private subsidized housing and home construction/financing for income/credit challenged families will keep them on life support.

The cost of one of the local subsidized mixed use housing projects is running well over $200,000 per unit with shared walls in a city where you can buy decent existing homes for $50,000 to $60,000. They're replacing condemned homes in poor, blighted, high crime neighborhoods with $160,000 to $200,000 Plus modular homes discounted and financed to low income/poverty level families. When these homes are trashed, vandalized or stripped, taxpayers end up repairing them as well .

by **Chuckmak** » Sat 13 Jun 2009, 12:07:58

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.

more here