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.The government [is] 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 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.
The idea of razing an abandoned and blighted area makes sense to me. However, the idea of "concentrating the dwindling population" raises images of blocks of ugly communal housing seen in the old Soveit Union and the attitude of the Bosheviks that all were equal and so the former bourgeois shopkeeper should be happy living choc-a-bloc with the uneducated factory worker. In fact, comrade, it was good for the collective and everyone will report for morning exercises at six o'clock sharp at the adjacent meadow . . . or be taken on a one-way trip into the adjacent forest.
You know those local services? I bet the electricity gets rationed too as part of this plan. People must learn to live green! And with each other! It would be selfish not do so.
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They've been talking about doing something similar in Detroit, with urban farms as the post-raze product.
I already see the occasional game bird in one neighborhood...
Projects, anyone?
So how soon after the displaced residents start destroying or criminalizing the affluent neighborhoods will it be considered a hate crime to report thuggish behavior?
I don't care about racial diversity. The worst neighbors my husband had were white folks who trashed the apartment (so badly they put a hole through the solid-core wood door of their apartment), played rap music at all hours, fought, and were belligerent with the cops. It's the attitude of some - black, white, and otherwise - that they don't have to take care of their homes, their yards, their appearance, or respect neighbor's property (I had kids in our second apartment steal my tomatoes and use them to plaster cars and houses), that's the problem.
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