? Do you remember AR’s years’-long occasional series on “The Late Great City of ____,” about American cities brought low by their dysfunctional and criminal black populations, so that vast tracts of cities such as Detroit were crumbling into ruins and returning to nature?
Well, look at the ambitious anti-growth plan Obama is interested in as a way of acknowledging and adjusting to this shrinkage, reported in the Telegraph:
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
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. [Hmm, what predominant demographic do those cities have in common?]
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. [Are GM’s troubles the cause of Flint’s necrosis, or another factor? As of the 2000 Census, Flint’s population was was 53.27% African American and 41.39% White.]
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. [This is the startling phenomenon that Jared Taylor began documenting at AR way back in the early ’90s.]
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”.
[end of Telegraph article]
James P. writes:
Mark P. writes:
John B. writes:
The Telegraph article about the idea of bulldozing ruined sections of American cities was an uber-pretzel of liberal lies, evasions, and rudeness. I was struck by the following:
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.
That is Liberalism 101:
First: Pass legislation that destroys a city. This will include socialist legislation that destroys its industry, plus race-related legislation that turns it non-white.
Second: Denounce and ridicule as reactionary anyone who resists the legislation and says it will lead to the city’s decline.
Third: When the city has, in fact, declined, treat the decline as a natural phenomenon. (“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.”) Remember, too, to suggest that nobody will escape the horror. (“We’re all shrinking.”)
Fourth: Criticize Americans as weaklings who are unable to face this simple reality. Be sure to use not only the adjective “social” or “cultural” (which should not be missing from any liberal pronouncement) but also an anthropological term—say, “taboo.” This will make clear that you view Americans as pathetic subjects of study.
If you yourself are an American, be sure to indicate that the weaklings to whom you implicitly refer are “Americans” or “we,” so that nobody will think the group you are casually insulting includes everyone but your right-thinking friends and you. If, on the other hand, you are not an American—and are simply living and prospering in America—simply say “Americans.” Your American liberal friends will applaud the insult you think yourself free to direct at your host country.
It gets better:
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.
That’s right. Continue what you’re doing. Spread the blight—and, if you think you can pull it off, implicitly characterize your action as something like its opposite. (Nobody will be “forced to move”—i.e., no inner-city blacks will be “forced to move” into the pleasant white neighborhoods in which totalitarian you are going to plant them.)
While thus proceeding to create new blight, mention how agreeable is your solution to the blight you’ve already caused. This will be especially easy if the solution includes the flourishing of something non-human (i.e., something better than everyone but your right-thinking friends and you):
“Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow,” he said.
Oh, yes, they’ll enjoy it—especially if you’ll tax them to install bike paths.
Finally—imply, on no basis whatsoever, that this is not a disaster—not a disturbing reduction of American power—but just an ordinary, if somewhat tricky, step along the perpetual road of progress (a step that, although easily understood by you, with your subtlety of mind, might be beyond the mental grasp of “some” Americans):
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”.
Liberals are the enemy.
John B. writes:
John B. continues:
Larry G. writes: