TW: While understanding many of the roadblocks, I have always wondered why cities both urban and rural do not move more aggressively to address abandoned and decaying real estate within their borders. Flint, Michigan is the focus of this piece where the city is pondering not converting a mere house here and there but entire neighbors. The city's population has shrunk drastically over the past decades resulting in a spread out, inefficient and unsafe network of housing and commerce.
In order to take such drastic measures, folks are going to have to leave structures they may enjoy at the individual level. Some are going to scream the heavy hand of government is dictating how people live. But when the status quo is in total miserable with no signs of abatement perhaps drastic measures become necessary.
From NYT:
"...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.
“Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”
...“A lot of people remember the past, when we were a successful city that others looked to as a model, and they hope. But you can’t base government policy on hope,” said Jim Ananich, president of the Flint City Council. “We have to do something drastic.”
Planned shrinkage became a workable concept in Michigan a few years ago, when the state changed its laws regarding properties foreclosed for delinquent taxes. Before, these buildings and land tended to become mired in legal limbo, contributing to blight. Now they quickly become the domain of county land banks, giving communities a powerful tool for change.
...Flint has begun updating its master plan, a complicated task last done in 1965. Then it was a prosperous city of 200,000 looking to grow to 350,000. It now has 110,000 people, about a third of whom live in poverty.
Flint has about 75 neighborhoods spread out over 34 square miles. It will be a delicate process to decide which to favor, Mr. Kildee acknowledged from the driver’s seat of his Grand Cherokee.
...On many streets, the weekly garbage pickup finds only one bag of trash. If those stops could be eliminated, Mr. Kildee said, the city could save $100,000 a year — one of many savings that shrinkage could bring.
...“If it’s going to look abandoned, let it be clean and green,” he said. “Create the new Flint forest — something people will choose to live near, rather than something that symbolizes failure.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business/22flint.html?scp=1&sq=flint%20michigan&st=cse
No comments:
Post a Comment