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2009-06-13 Home Front: Politix

US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

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Posted by Fred 2009-06-13 05:21|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 I understand, anything but lower home prices.
Make homes harder to find equals artificial shortage.

Posted by Mstrmech 2009-06-13 05:41|| 2009-06-13 05:41|| Front Page Top

#2 No need to leave these ghost towns standing simply to remind our children of the greatness that once was industrial America but is now.....thanks to the unions and the politicians, modern China. The entire country belongs to the gummit "eminently" anyway. Let the D9's roll!

Posted by Besoeker 2009-06-13 07:11|| 2009-06-13 07:11|| Front Page Top

#3 There's another advantage to clearing out these cities. When/where we rebuild it will be with much newer technologies, more efficient infrastructure and without shoe-horning new industries into old buildings and locations.

Of course, the left would be horrified to realize they are proposing just exactly the sort of creative destruction that Schumpeter pointed out is at the core of capitalism. ;-)

Posted by lotp 2009-06-13 08:23|| 2009-06-13 08:23|| Front Page Top

#4 Got to get those D9's back on the assembly line in Peoria.

Posted by Jack is Back!">Jack is Back! 2009-06-13 08:29|| 2009-06-13 08:29|| Front Page Top

#5 US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

Start with everything inside the Beltway. Just leave the mall's immediate surrounding edifices and the Smithsonian standing.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-06-13 09:15|| 2009-06-13 09:15|| Front Page Top

#6 How about implementing rational economic and trade policies that brings work and wealth back to America so the cities can once again have gainfully employed workers raising families, needing housing, spending money? Beats the drug dealers and whores creating demand for abandoned crack houses. Ya know, the things leaders are really SUPPOSED TO DO.

Old Flint

Posted by ed 2009-06-13 09:22|| 2009-06-13 09:22|| Front Page Top

#7 Shovel-ready work for those 20% might not be a bad idea.

Posted by Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2009-06-13 09:23|| 2009-06-13 09:23|| Front Page Top

#8 Cities can be thought of as public factories to produce a wide variety of goods and services. Cities, unlike factories, are not easily shut down or reorganized when demands for outputs shift or demography changes. Think of those abandoned strip malls that stand empty for years on end before a Goodwill or, if one is lucky, Gold's Gym moves in. Pretty, ain't it?

Posted by Perfesser 2009-06-13 09:27|| 2009-06-13 09:27|| Front Page Top

#9 being from metro Detroit and having family near Flint I have no problem w/this. Detroit already has miles of "urban prarie" within it. In the 1950s we (Detroit proper, not the suburbs) boasted 1.5-1.8 Million people, in 2000's we are maybe at 900,000 - if lucky. Return the land to nature, fine. Right now both cities look like DMZ's - which they pretty much are.

Posted by Broadhead6 2009-06-13 09:50|| 2009-06-13 09:50|| Front Page Top

#10 I also don't mean to dismiss your comments ed -in the big scheme you're right. However & sadly, we won't see any of those sorts of policies until Obama's out of office and we have a business smart pres back in the W.H. I just hope when that time comes it's not too late to un-f*ck what Wonderboy has brought upon the country.

Posted by Broadhead6 2009-06-13 09:56|| 2009-06-13 09:56|| Front Page Top

#11 The problem is that Obama, who's seems to have never done an honest day's work in his life, truly believes that Government creates wealth while in truth Government can only consume wealth.

Posted by CrazyFool 2009-06-13 10:15|| 2009-06-13 10:15|| Front Page Top

#12 "We had to destroy the village to save it."

Posted by bman 2009-06-13 10:52|| 2009-06-13 10:52|| Front Page Top

#13 Wait till the left catches on that it's the poor folks that are getting displaced. How much is it going to cost to move the dregs to the upscale part of town?

Posted by AlanC">AlanC 2009-06-13 11:15|| 2009-06-13 11:15|| Front Page Top

#14 Then the government can build nice, clean, safe high-rise apartment blocks for all the poor people!

Man, am I ever smart!

Posted by Parabellum 2009-06-13 13:02|| http://sidemeat.wordpress.com/]">[http://sidemeat.wordpress.com/] 2009-06-13 13:02|| Front Page Top

#15 And here is the silver lining says Mr Kildee: "People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow,"

Posted by whitecollar redneck 2009-06-13 13:17|| 2009-06-13 13:17|| Front Page Top

#16 No one mentioned that abandoned housing & buildings deteriorate, that deteriorated housing is extremely expensive to make habitable and that this cost increases month by month. Some abandoned buildings in southeastern Michigan actually has a negative value, in that the property's value = value of raw land MINUS the cost of razing the structures on it. Better to bulldoze the structures than to live with that situation. In Texas during their housing crisis of the 1980's, nearly new housing was bulldozed this way for that reason.
There are massive structures in Detroit with negative value, such as the still-smoldering Packard plant that the Detroit Fire Dept is afraid to enter, and the "Abandoned Symbol Of Detroit's Better Days".

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-06-13 13:42|| 2009-06-13 13:42|| Front Page Top

#17 There's another advantage to clearing out these cities. When/where we rebuild it will be with much newer technologies, more efficient infrastructure and without shoe-horning new industries into old buildings and locations.

And between one hundred, to one thousand times more expensive.

Posted by Mstrmech 2009-06-13 14:23|| 2009-06-13 14:23|| Front Page Top

#18 Go ahead and bulldoze. But they should consider a monument with a map of the former city when it was great and a map of the present city and a statement to the effect that "This is what happens when unions get greedy and executives get complacent."

Posted by Abu Uluque 2009-06-13 15:16|| 2009-06-13 15:16|| Front Page Top

#19 Somebody's played SimCity a bit too much.

Posted by Pappy 2009-06-13 16:28|| 2009-06-13 16:28|| Front Page Top

#20 Rural Mich. counties turn failing roads to gravel
"Montcalm County converted nearly 10 miles of primary road to gravel this spring.

The county estimates it takes about $10,000 to grind up a mile of pavement and put down gravel. It takes more than $100,000 to repave a mile of road."

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-06-13 16:52|| 2009-06-13 16:52|| Front Page Top

#21 Bulldozing older homes with yards. Replacing them with high density apartments and single family homes on postage stamp lots with Stalinist HOA's.

The new poverty.

Posted by Iblis 2009-06-13 20:42|| 2009-06-13 20:42|| Front Page Top

#22 in San Diego (and a LOT of other municipalities), recycling the ground-up asphalt is a given. We, however, don't repave as gravel. I suspect that, given release of asphalt oils, that would not be allowed in our region (i.e.: outside of desperationville), and it sounds like a real measure of "we'll NEVER be able to maintain it, let it go back to a dirt road", which it will, evetually. Hellooooo, Governor Granholm (D-Canada)! All your Jeff Daniels' ads aren't fooling anybody

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-06-13 21:06|| 2009-06-13 21:06|| Front Page Top

#23 My father (Civil Engineer) said the best road was asphalt over concrete, he developed a method of plowing cement into the soil, watering it with water rucks, then laying asphalt over the "Stabilsed" Soil. he used this building Interstate 65 from Montgomery to the Georgia border, the road has no cracks today.

Reusing asphalt is also not new, it has been used about 30 years now, bulldoze the asphalt, truck it to a huge "Mixer"(Think cement mixer, but much bigger) add tar and truck back wher you got it, relay it, roll it smooth, and good for another 20 or so years.

Posted by Mstrmech 2009-06-13 22:58|| 2009-06-13 22:58|| Front Page Top

#24 correct - basically CTB, mstrmech, (Cement Treated Base) which is our std Schedule-J pavement under our Standard Designs (thickness/asphalt cover based on ADT/usage)

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-06-13 23:04|| 2009-06-13 23:04|| Front Page Top

#25 enuf late-day CE geek-talk for me

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-06-13 23:05|| 2009-06-13 23:05|| Front Page Top

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