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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Less revenue sharing is probably in our future. Michigan is the only state in the United States to have a population decline. Yet we are spending money to build new homes when there are some nonprofits with homes in the city and county they are unable to sell. Only Habitat for Humanity seems to get it right.
Could we have spend the federal recovery dollars in a wiser fashion? I am opinionated so I appreciate other viewpoints. Could we have improved safety around schools by ensuring those vacant homes near the school routes be torn down? Could a consortia have been created to improve the condition of some schools?
There are already some areas that are country like. Look at an area near Delia that in the summer is so pretty it takes your breath away. Many streets hae only one or two occupied homes per block. Clearing these homes and blocking off the area means no snow plowing in that area, no street maintenance or other required services. When the St John Street area was under urban renewal, I remember articles that some Oak Park residents were upset they were not included.
Bulldozing America’s Shrinking Cities
By EDWARD L. GLAESER
June 16, 2009, 7:32 am
Apture™ by Buck
Edward L. Glaeser is an economics professor at Harvard.
On Friday, a British newspaper, The Telegraph, ran an article titled “U.S. Cities May Have to Be Bulldozed to Survive.”
This idea is hardly new. Youngstown, Ohio, and its mayor, Jay Williams, have long aimed at transforming that declining Rust Belt polis into “a sustainable mid-sized city.” Detroit’s last mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was elected in 2002 on a promise to raze 5,000 houses. The Telegraph article’s novelty was the suggestion that the Obama administration is interested in supporting bulldozing, which prompted the Drudge Report headline: “Obama Era: Bulldoze Shrinking Cities?”
Despite the headlines, the Telegraph article does not actually describe a massive new government policy aimed at helping cities shrink to greatness. The text described the pro-shrinkage ideas of the treasurer of Genesee County, Mich., who “outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the campaign,” and has been “approached by the U.S. government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.” Thousands of people have outlined their strategies to the president over the last 48 months, and if a junior staff member at the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis asks you for a few ideas about branch banking, then you too can truthfully say that you have been “approached” by the American government.
But while there is no evidence that the Obama administration is committed to razing homes, it probably should be.
For too long, America’s declining cities have tried to find magic bullets that would bring them back to their former glory. Eighteen months ago, I suggested that Buffalo wasn’t about to come back any time soon. I argued that would be far wiser to accept the reality of decline and focus on investing in human capital that can move out, not fixed physical capital.
After all, the job of government is to enrich and empower the lives of its citizens, not to chase the chimera of population growth targets. Just once, I want to hear a Rust Belt mayor say with pride “my city lost 200,000 people during my term, but we’ve given them the education they need to find a better life elsewhere.”
Urban decline is a reality in much of older, colder America.
In 1900, every one of the 20 largest American cities was on a major waterway. All but two (San Francisco and New Orleans) were in the northeast quadrant of the country that is framed by the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. These cities grew because rivers and lakes made it possible to bring the great wealth of the American hinterland to the markets of the east, and then because manufacturing concentrated around transport hubs. Over the 20th century, a more than 90 percent decline in the cost of moving goods over space made these advantages obsolete, and Americans moved to newer Sun Belt cities built around the automobile.
The move to sun and sprawl meant that 8 of the 10 largest cities in the United States in 1950 have lost at least 20 percent of their population since that date. In some cities, like Detroit, Cleveland and St. Louis, population has declined by more than 50 percent.
Urban public policy over the past 60 years focused on helping those places come back, but policies like urban renewal and the model cities program did little for the people living in declining areas.
As America contemplates a new “train” agenda, the country should recall that Detroit’s People Mover reigns supreme as the silliest of all pieces of urban infrastructure. The farce of that rail-to-nowhere is tragic because the money spent building and maintaining the monorail could have been spent on Detroit’s children. Mayors of cities-in-decline have long been fond of subsidizing shiny downtown office buildings, and then declaring that the new towers mean that their city is back. Cleveland has been fond of calling itself the “Comeback City,” but its population has continued to decline, and 29.7 percent of its citizens live in poverty.
The hallmark of declining places is an abundance of infrastructure relative to people. It is therefore particularly foolish to try to save declining places by building new infrastructure or homes. Buffalo would have done better to invest in its children than in light rail.
Razing abandoned buildings is the extreme acknowledgment that declining cities aren’t about to achieve former population levels. Parks are better than abandoned buildings, and Mayor Williams is right to want to right-size his city. So while the Obama administration hasn’t yet embraced the bulldozer, I’m hoping that they will embrace urban policies that put people ahead of place.
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:25 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:05 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Cleveland tops list of shrinking cities
New Census population estimates show Rust Belt's decline
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 10:54 AM
By Hope Yen
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AP FILE
A foreclosed home in Cleveland in 2008.WASHINGTON -- Hurt by the still-sluggish economy, Rust Belt cities and other U.S. manufacturing regions are suffering the biggest population losses as people search elsewhere for jobs.
New census estimates for 2009 highlight the continuing effects of the recession on the nation's cities.
The figures show Cleveland had the largest numerical decline in residents, dropping 2,658, or nearly 1 percent. It was followed by Detroit and Flint, Mich., which lost 1,713 and 1,382 people, respectively. |
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Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:11 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Shrinking Cities News Round-Up: Vacant Properties and Public Safety
Posted by shrinkingcities under Uncategorized | Tags: Dave Bing, demolition, Detroit, News Round-Up, shrinking cities, strategies, vacant property |
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In addition to being eyesores, vacant and abandoned properties also threaten public safety. These properties can become breeding grounds for criminal activity and arson, placing strain on the city’s resources and police and fire departments – as evidenced by these recent news stories from Detroit:
Early Morning Arson Claims Vacant Properties
Arson investigators are continuing their investigation of eight fires set early last Tuesday morning, all of which were vacant buildings.
Police Officer Killed in Shootout at Vacant Duplex
Earlier this month, one officer was killed and four others wounded while responding to a report of gunshots at a vacant property. According to neighbors, drugs were being sold out of the building.
City Leaders Plan Demolitions to Cut Crime
Buoyed by the police shootings, the Detroit City Council is working with Mayor David Bing to expedite a new city ordinance to hold property owners more accountable for their properties.
The Mayor’s office is also using data to examine the correlation between crime and vacancies, which will inform the demolition of 3,000 rundown homes this year that will “cut crime and improve quality of life.”
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Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:13 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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June 2, 2010 Shrinking Cities- Department of urban Affairs, Virginia Tech
Obama refocusing on suburbs?
Posted by Michael Hill under Suburban Redevelopment | Tags: decision makers, suburbs |
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In a recent commentary in Newsweek, Lawrence C. Levy wrote that as a part of the push for healthcare reform, President Obama has “rediscovered” the suburbs, i.e., remembered that many of America’s swing voters live in suburban communities. Also, that these communities are represent a more complicated and diverse demographic than in previous years.
Levy points out that today’s suburbs have many of the same problems that have been endemic to urban areas for decades. He also makes the case that suburbs are challenged in solving these problems precisely because of their disconnected nature.
The article seems to suggest that the administration will refocus their efforts on rebuilding the suburbs, beyond the needs of this particular legislative effort. How true do you think this is?
Has Obama rediscovered the suburbs? |
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Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:22 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The Shrinking Cities International Research Network™
The Shrinking Cities International Research Network (SCiRN™) is a worldwide research consortium of scholars and experts from various institutions pursuing ...
http://www.shrinkingcities.org/ - - Cached - Similar pages
Shrinking Cities Institute
Planning Shrinking Cities by Justin B. Hollander, Urban and ...
natural systems in shrinking cities. Capitalizing on decline to set aside .... Shrinking cities have a long history. In Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and ...
http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/popper/ShrinkingCities.pdf - - Cached - Find Directions To Locations Across The US. Search Bing™ Maps Now! |
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Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:27 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| Flint is shrinking, but not in an organized way. |
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Fri Jul 08, 2016 7:28 pm |
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