Sancho Panza
2009-06-13 01:00:25 UTC
US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive
Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of
drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama
administration to tackle economic decline.
By Tom Leonard in Flint, Michigan
Published: 6:30PM BST 12 Jun 2009
Hope springs at signs of life in US housing market: a boarded up house sits
for sale in Detroit, Michigan.
A boarded up house sits for sale in Michigan. Photo: GETTY
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.
Flint, sixty miles north of Detroit, was the original home of General
Motors. The car giant once employed 79,000 local people but that figure has
shrunk to around 8,000. Unemployment is now approaching 20 per cent and the
total population has almost halved to 110,000. The exodus - particularly of
young people - coupled with the consequent collapse in property prices, has
left street after street in sections of the city almost entirely abandoned.
In the city centre, the once grand Durant Hotel - named after William
Durant, GM's founder - is a symbol of the city's decline, said Mr Kildee.
The large building has been empty since 1973, roughly when Flint's decline
began.
Regarded as a model city in the motor industry's boom years, Flint may once
again be emulated, though for very different reasons.But Mr Kildee, who has
lived there nearly all his life, said he had first to overcome a deeply
ingrained American cultural mindset that "big is good" and that cities
should sprawl - Flint covers 34 square miles.
He said: "The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across
the US, there's an assumption that all development is good, that if
communities are growing they are successful. If they're shrinking, they're
failing."
But some Flint dustcarts are collecting just one rubbish bag a week, roads
are decaying, police are very understaffed and there were simply too few
people to pay for services, he said. If the city didn't downsize it will
eventually go bankrupt, he added. Flint's recovery efforts have been helped
by a new state law passed a few years ago which allowed local governments to
buy up empty properties very cheaply.They could then knock them down or sell
them on to owners who will occupy them. The city wants to specialise in
health and education services, both areas which cannot easily be relocated
abroad.
The local authority has restored the city's attractive but formerly deserted
centre but has pulled down 1,100 abandoned homes in outlying areas.Mr Kildee
estimated another 3,000 needed to be demolished, although the city
boundaries will remain the same.Already, some streets peter out into woods
or meadows, no trace remaining of the homes that once stood there.
Choosing which areas to knock down will be delicate but many of them were
already obvious, he said.The city is buying up houses in more affluent areas
to offer people in neighbourhoods it wants to demolish. Nobody will be
forced to move, said Mr Kildee.
"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living
near a forest or meadow," he said.
Mr Kildee acknowledged that some fellow Americans considered his solution
"defeatist" but he insisted it was "no more defeatist than pruning an
overgrown tree so it can bear fruit again".
Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of
drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama
administration to tackle economic decline.
By Tom Leonard in Flint, Michigan
Published: 6:30PM BST 12 Jun 2009
Hope springs at signs of life in US housing market: a boarded up house sits
for sale in Detroit, Michigan.
A boarded up house sits for sale in Michigan. Photo: GETTY
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.
Flint, sixty miles north of Detroit, was the original home of General
Motors. The car giant once employed 79,000 local people but that figure has
shrunk to around 8,000. Unemployment is now approaching 20 per cent and the
total population has almost halved to 110,000. The exodus - particularly of
young people - coupled with the consequent collapse in property prices, has
left street after street in sections of the city almost entirely abandoned.
In the city centre, the once grand Durant Hotel - named after William
Durant, GM's founder - is a symbol of the city's decline, said Mr Kildee.
The large building has been empty since 1973, roughly when Flint's decline
began.
Regarded as a model city in the motor industry's boom years, Flint may once
again be emulated, though for very different reasons.But Mr Kildee, who has
lived there nearly all his life, said he had first to overcome a deeply
ingrained American cultural mindset that "big is good" and that cities
should sprawl - Flint covers 34 square miles.
He said: "The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across
the US, there's an assumption that all development is good, that if
communities are growing they are successful. If they're shrinking, they're
failing."
But some Flint dustcarts are collecting just one rubbish bag a week, roads
are decaying, police are very understaffed and there were simply too few
people to pay for services, he said. If the city didn't downsize it will
eventually go bankrupt, he added. Flint's recovery efforts have been helped
by a new state law passed a few years ago which allowed local governments to
buy up empty properties very cheaply.They could then knock them down or sell
them on to owners who will occupy them. The city wants to specialise in
health and education services, both areas which cannot easily be relocated
abroad.
The local authority has restored the city's attractive but formerly deserted
centre but has pulled down 1,100 abandoned homes in outlying areas.Mr Kildee
estimated another 3,000 needed to be demolished, although the city
boundaries will remain the same.Already, some streets peter out into woods
or meadows, no trace remaining of the homes that once stood there.
Choosing which areas to knock down will be delicate but many of them were
already obvious, he said.The city is buying up houses in more affluent areas
to offer people in neighbourhoods it wants to demolish. Nobody will be
forced to move, said Mr Kildee.
"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living
near a forest or meadow," he said.
Mr Kildee acknowledged that some fellow Americans considered his solution
"defeatist" but he insisted it was "no more defeatist than pruning an
overgrown tree so it can bear fruit again".