What to do with Detroit?
Cindy Perman writes for CNBC:
Mayor Dave Bing is apparently working on a radical plan that would bulldoze a quarter of the city — some of the most desolate areas — and return it to farmland, the way it was before the automobile. Any residents still there would be relocated to stronger neighborhoods.
Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genessee County, containing Flint, Michigan, remarks:
“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.”
Actually, building more subdivisions just increases the deficit between
tax revenues collected and cost of services provided.
Perman concludes:
Welcome to the future. Why does it look so much like 1910 instead of 2010?
Perhaps because 1910 had railroads for mass transit and cities were still
dense and close to existing services?
Detroit officials intentionally cut power to city hall and a convention center Thursday to prevent the municipal power system from crashing from high energy demand — even though temperatures had tapered to the 70s after two days above 90. Equipment failures knocked out power to several other government buildings and traffic lights in parts of the downtown.