They could easily raze 2/3 of the city and be fine.

My buddy and I have the idea to buy up 10 acres and start a farm.

Why stop there?

No money in the budget.

Just wait until next Halloween. The kids'll take care of it for you.

Wants you to kill it with fire.

Plowing the city would be a LOT of new jobs.

Someone post the aerial view of the neighborhood in the fifties, at the turn of the century and today, showing the amount of houses dwindling away to nothing.

I thought they already HAD bulldozed a quarter of the city.

This is probably a good idea, from my understanding the city is well under 3/4 capacity anyways. Getting rid of the worst areas could transform the city from a sprawling mess to a smaller, more functional, city.

I saw an episode of Life After People a little while ago, which featured Gary, Indiana and the desolate areas caused by the population declining by half over the past 50 years. I don't think any city would really want that and parklands would be a much better option. Maybe they can plant forests and develop a timber industry.

What is happening in Detriot is just the tip of the iceberg. IMO.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

I may be wrong... lets see what happens.

Where are the SimCity references?

Nuke it from orbit, 8 should do it.

Democrats made it legal for corrput politicians and corrupt unions to steal and destroy businesses. Now, no one wants to do business there. Man, I never saw that one coming.

For how many decades has Detroit had a Democrat Mayor? -some people never learn.

ColonelCathcart: Nuke it from orbit, 8 should do it.

I don't wanna die :( Box 5 is enough.

Sounds like a good start... But knowing Detroit they will find a way to screw it up.

Bulldozing your neighborhood... for greater efficiency!
I understand that sometimes deconstruction is the only way to insure progress, but it still has to suck for those who are unfortunate enough to be caught in the path.

Why relocate the current residents if they own a home? Just doze down the empty homes and give the survivors a larger 3-5 acre lot. Then use the extra land for parks/golf course. No farms, I don't know anyone who would consume produce grown in the industrial wastes of detroit.

Call Karl!

One of my favorite post Katrina stories.




Link (new window)

Just make sure you grab your towel.

Hagbardr: Wants you to kill it with fire.

They seem to want to move the people first in Detroit, which is probably a goode idea.

Not too long ago they proposed moving people from the mostly abandoned areas into the still-populated areas. Not a bad general idea, but I didn't like the prospect of forcibly moving people from their homes. I propose they shrink the city limits to the area they can sustain, cut off any city services (water/sewage, bussing, road maintenance, etc.) to areas outside the city limits, then let people decide for themselves.

I like the idea of bulldozing the vast swaths of abandoned housing/industry, provided they decontaminate the earth they leave behind. At that point, just let nature do what it will with it.

Of course, they won't shrink the city, as they think industry will move in once the tax burden is lifted, and they don't want to give up on the taxes they can get from such industry, which they can't get now because the city's a hell hole...

/_{rambling, incoherent...something}

dittybopper: spartywrx: They could easily raze 2/3 of the city and be fine.

My buddy and I have the idea to buy up 10 acres and start a farm.

You could do that now.

Go on Google Earth and look at Detroit: There is an *AWFUL* lot of green space there for a major metropolitan city. Just a mere 1.5 miles from the center of downtown are places that look like this:



That's 2128 Pierce Street, if you want to go look for yourself.


My girlfriend's coworker has a chicken coop and corn in her backyard. She lives a 20 minute walk from Joe Louis Arena downtown. She also has a group of guys who smoke crack on her sidewalk daily.

A guy down the street from me is growing sweet corn on an abandoned lot and a giant firepit in his backyard. I'd like to see anyone have a 10ft. bonfire pit in any major city and get away with it.

Apparently there are flocks of pheasants on the East side. Too bad hunting is not allowed inside the city. You could sell urban safaris. Link (new window)

I had thought about the same thing not too long ago. If you have lots of abandoned houses and buildings that are attracting squatters, drug delers, etc. and it is a breeding area for crime, you have 2 options. You can pay enormous sums to police to try to manage the area or bulldoze it and eliminate the areas where it's happening. Now, this isn't to say the problem won't relocate, but it will be reduced...

dittybopper: spartywrx: They could easily raze 2/3 of the city and be fine.

My buddy and I have the idea to buy up 10 acres and start a farm.

You could do that now.

Go on Google Earth and look at Detroit: There is an *AWFUL* lot of green space there for a major metropolitan city. Just a mere 1.5 miles from the center of downtown are places that look like this:



That's 2128 Pierce Street, if you want to go look for yourself.

I'm sitting 0.9 miles away from there (according to google maps) right now so I'm getting a kick...

As long as they leave Atwater Brewery alone, they can bulldoze whatever they want.

Well it should be interesting to watch the gang violence when members come together in new hoods that they each want to control.

Why relocate the current residents if they own a home? Just doze down the empty homes and give the survivors a larger 3-5 acre lot.

I was thinking the same thing. That's how we do it in the sticks. Pretty soon people will have pole barns, pick up trucks, ATVs, and tree stands.

spartywrx

My buddy and I have the idea to buy up 10 acres and start a farm.

Your buddy isn't named George is he?

Rumpleforskin: Why relocate the current residents if they own a home? Just doze down the empty homes and give the survivors a larger 3-5 acre lot. Then use the extra land for parks/golf course. No farms, I don't know anyone who would consume produce grown in the industrial wastes of detroit.

They want to save money on city services. If your trash collection only needs to cover 1/2 of what it did before, then you save considerable expenses. Same with police and fire. Detroit is broke and is not expecting a turnaround anytime soon, so they need to cut budgets permanently. If people are still spread out across the city then there is no savings to the city.

Rumpleforskin: Why relocate the current residents if they own a home? Just doze down the empty homes and give the survivors a larger 3-5 acre lot. Then use the extra land for parks/golf course. No farms, I don't know anyone who would consume produce grown in the industrial wastes of detroit.

That is under consideration. "Urban Homesteads". Give it a cute name and it has a better chance for success.

schattenteufel: Both parties are equally destructive & corrupt. It's time for a change.

Finally, a political comment I can agree with!

logophile: They need capital up front to pay for the demolition, and to replant trees or parks or whatever.

They can do a bond issuance and amortize it over the long payoff period. Eliminating whole streets means not having to pay for pothole repairs, water & sewer line maintenance, garbage pick up, snow plowing, utility maintenance, police & fire coverage, etc. That's a lot of money to be saved over the long run.

rczeien: spartywrx

My buddy and I have the idea to buy up 10 acres and start a farm.

Your buddy isn't named George is he?

Nice.

/tell him about the rabbits.

Finally, a plan to revitalize Detroit that I can get behind. This plan utilizes techniques that worked in Flint and other parts of the country, plus it goes along with what I've been saying all along, the city needs to DOWNSIZE. Remove all the empty buildings and houses, leave the ones that are still inhabited. An empty vacant piece of land is worth more than a condemned dilapidated building. Yea, we're bulldozing about 50% of the city, but that's what needs to happen. People still living in their homes can stay, but everything else around them needs to be torn down and removed. The city needs a fresh clean slate and the main thing holding Detroit back are all the abandoned properties.

There are only THREE things standing in the way of Detroit reclaiming it's former glory...

1 - Full support of this plan from everyone in the city

2 - Federal funding

3 - Time

Once all troops are removed from Iraq next year and the operation in Afghanistan winds down (also scheduled next year), there should be a large influx of tax money coming in. 1 billion in federal funding to essentially wipe Detroit's slate clean and give a major American city a new life is something that taxes were made for. We just need the government to stop throwing away our money to countries overseas that need help and start using that money for our OWN cities.

If they did this, then in only 5-10 years time Detroit could be well on it's way back.

Why relocate the current residents if they own a home? Just doze down the empty homes and give the survivors a larger 3-5 acre lot.

The politicians will then triple their property taxes.

schattenteufel: Little.Alex: Democrats made it legal for corrput politicians and corrupt unions to steal and destroy businesses. Now, no one wants to do business there. Man, I never saw that one coming.

For how many decades has Detroit had a Democrat Mayor? -some people never learn.


Yeah; it was so much better when the Republicans let corrupt CEOs destroyed their own businesses. Both parties are equally destructive & corrupt. It's time for a change.

I was just noticing that everyone had completely ignored the troll, and how refreshing that was.

But, nope, you had to bite.