Detroit to Bulldoze Thousands of Homes in Fight for Survival

[babylonsister]

Detroit to Bulldoze Thousands of Homes in Fight for Survival
Tired of Detroit's status as the symbol of everything wrong with urban America, its new mayor has come up with a radical solution: to bulldoze the city.

by Alex Spillius in Detroit


David Bing, a businessman and former all-star basketball player who entered politics late in life, says he has no choice.

The 2010 census is expected to reveal a population of about 800,000, down from a peak of 1.8 million in the Motor City heyday of the late 1950s.

The long decline of the car industry and all its spin-off business has been exacerbated by the collapse of a housing market that has left prices close to what they were 50 years ago, when lifestyle magazines featured Detroit as the most desirable city in the United States.

Decent three-bedroom homes can be bought for $10,000, but no one wants to buy.

Decades of poor and at times corrupt administration have also taken their toll, and with the city facing a deficit of between $85 and $124 million this year, the answer, says Mr Bing, is to accept reality and reduce the size of the city.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/05/29-2

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

1. As a Detroit native,

born and raised, I cannot tell you how sad this makes me feel...........

[bluestateguy]

2. Detroit will never again have 1.8 million people

And that does not have to be a bad thing. Abandoned blight is not only an eyesore it attracts crime, repels businesses from locating in the city and drives down property values. I support what Bing is doing.

[Taverner]

3. Sigh...I cry for Michigan

Not just Detroit, but Lansing, Flint, Kalamazoo...

All once great Midwest centers of industry, now, graves of what they once were.

-----------------------------

I swear I still cry every time I see "Roger and Me"

[Davis_X_Machina]

4. This has happened, and is happening

...in some of the industrial cities of the old East Germany. See Statumbau Ost for the details

[EFerrari]

5. Laura Flanders had a clip on of a lady who lost her house -- to the city over a water bill.

She'd quit her job to take care of her Dad in the last stages of his Alzheimer's, and her water bill went unpaid. She didn't default on her mortgage, she had no mortgage. But the city sent her to a private collection agency over a few hundred $ water bill.

That's all it took.

#3

[Urban Prairie]

6. Based on what is going on in the GOM

Maybe Detroit should hold off a bit on razing all of those houses.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. Much of them have been gutted and looted already

Not much hope for them at this point

[Urban Prairie]

9. I'm thinking absolute worst case scenario, of course.

Where possibly millions in the SE US may need to relocate permanently.

Where do they all go??

Yeah, most of those homes have been gutted, but some if not many might be worth saving or restoring.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. Why would the SE relocate north, I would think it would be the other way around

[angstlessk]

12. We moved here to Detroit when our balloon on our mortgage came due

we were able to purchase a perfectly good home in a great neighborhood for $5,000 cash! In fact it is better built than our home in VA...it has a basement..and very thick walls for insulation because of the winters here. The people here are amazingly friendly. I love Detroit!

Hell, it certainly beats being homeless in VA

[Tansy_Gold]

11. www.100abandonedhouses.com

a visual requiem

[fujiyama]

8. I'm glad the city finally has a mayor capable of making tough decisions

[Manifestor_of_Light]

13. they could grow food on the vacant lots.

[etherealtruth]

14. Its not as simple as planting food crops in the land of the bull dozed structures

Sadly, there are high levels of contamination in the soils of the city. I would love to see plants used as a means to remediate the soils in the city. Plants can be used effectively to stabilize or remove heavy metals from soils and breakdown organic contaminants. Many contaminants would be removed or reduced after several generations of planting.

This would be a great first step; however, I would not eat fruits or vegetables that were grown in city plots right now. Obviously, one could use raised plots with "imported" soils, but this is an expensive proposition.


http://www.academicjournals.org/ijps/PDF/pdf2010/Feb/Opeolu%20et%20al.pdf
http://www.pakbs.org/pjbot/PDFs/42(1)/PJB42(1)291.pdf