“Not everyone’s going to win… But now, everyone’s losing.”

21 April, 2009

Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods.

The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval.

Regardless of if it can work, It sounds like it might be something worth looking into for a lot of american cites that have sprawled too far. Flint is a microcosm of Detroit - Think of a city like Detroit (well, Detroit, plus an adequate mass transit system) on an appropriate footprint, where it's million people don't have to be constantly reminded that at one time there were another 2 million people there. Think of the police being able to patrol the area properly. Think of all that cheap land the city would then have to redevelop or sell for a profit. Think of the jobs that could bring in.

Could be a great idea or a dud. I wonder if Flint will actually do it.