The Mayor Of Detroit’s Radical Plan To Bulldoze One Quarter Of The City

[MargueriteBee]

One of the Robocop movies is on right now and it is at the part where people and good cops are defending their neighborhood with a gun battle because OCP (The Corporation) wants to bulldoze down the everyone's houses. The movie is placed in Detroit and this reminded me of:

http://tinyurl.com/ygx2z5p

How do you save a city that is dramatically declining like Detroit? Well, for the mayor of Detroit the answer is simple - you bulldoze one-fourth of the city. Faced with a 300 million dollar budget deficit and a rapidly dwindling tax base, Detroit finds itself having to make some really hard choices.

[bluestflame]

is it life imitation art or art imitating life ?

[SpoonMan]

From your article:
"The true unemployment rate for those still living in Detroit is estimated to be somewhere around 45 to 50 percent"

I can't believe they aren't rioting. I guess as soon as the gov can't pay unemployment checks to those 500,000 people it will turn sour

[pyrangello]

Here are some stats to digest , 49% of detroiters can't read or write, 17% of the students make it to graduation thru the school system, the rest drop out and the entire city population is decreasing.I believe it's 840,000 now. Our governor who has been in office for the past 8 years has sucked up to the michigan education association in this state because of the vote and yet what has it produced. She forgot that you can educate all the people in the world but if there are no jobs here they are going to leave. The new mayor has put a plan together to demolish 10,000 homes of the 90,000 that are vacant . And yes they are talking about turning into farmland now, I suppose thats better than the upheaval like greece.

Just for the record, this state has been controlled by a democratic governor ,house and senate for the last 8 years and we still maintain the highest unemployment in the country at 14% officially, 21% unofficially. Take a good look at us here , this is right where the U.S. is headed because it's a carbon copy of what is in the feds now. Ever give it a second thought why Hillary Clinton skipped michigan to campaign in , if it was a role model she would have been here in a heartbeat, instead it was a disaster and that why she skipped it, because it was exactly what she was trying to do.

There's many talented workers here but much has to change before it turns around and it starts at the top in this state in the november elections.

[DonnaA]

I think instead of bulldozing the houses they should give them back to the people who lost them in the first place.

WTH is wrong with this country? WTH is wrong with the people who are allowing this to happen? Oh well I guess it's better to let the people live in tents and spend the money to demolish then it is to have compassion. :(

[MargueriteBee]

it would be great if they gave the farm land to the people and let them set up Kin Domains...... just dreaming.

[kcbc2010]

Mayor Bing has a plan, but they stopped bulldozing after they did 1 house! *Yes, you read that correctly "one" house!* Why? Because they forgot to get asbestos/envirnomental cleanup permits because the houses were built long before envirnomental standards were developed. Getting any type of city permit in the city of Detroit can take (literally) years. It will be awhile before they demolish any more of those houses.

Also, while it would be nice to give people these homes, they aren't safe. A lot of the kids who grow up in these older homes are dealing with mental and social problems due to lead paint/piping - which is one of the reasons why trying to educate the kids is a lot harder than it should be in Detroit.