Fascinating Proposal to "shrink Detoit and Flint"

Cities Downsize to Survive by CalculatedRisk on 6/13/2009 01:25:00 PM

From The Telegraph: US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive (ht Chad, Brian)
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 ... 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."


NC: This is a fascinating proposal straight out of the History Channel show "Life After People". So they would actually turn old Detroit residential and commercial zones back into farmland or even its original natural state which I suppose would be forest.

If you get beyond obvious issues such as the logistics and morality of forcing people to leave their homes and businesses, even if in poor condition, its actually a great proposal. Ideally, you could recreate urban living in the remaining "villages" which would include higher density housing like townhouses and high-rise apartments and walkable residential areas, something always lacking in Detroit.

That being said, I still like my idea for turning the area into a clean water technology hub, but in the absense of economic and population growth - perhaps a "Life After People" experiment makes some sense and could even re-energize the area.