US Plans To Bulldoze 50 Shrinking Cities

chrb writes "Two days ago Slashdot discussed broke counties grinding their tarmac roads into gravel. Now the Telegraph reveals plans to raze huge sections of at least 50 US cities to the ground. The resulting smaller cities will be more economical to run, and the recovered land will be returned to nature."

Lets start with...

[Anonymous Coward]

East Capitol Street, NE and 1st Street, NE Washington, DC 20002

Suggestion:

[Random2]

Can DC be first?

better idea

[rev_sanchez]

We wall these areas off and turn them into Escape from New York style maximum security prisons. As long as we don't fly Air Force One over that airspace we should be OK. Kurt Russell is getting a bit too old to keep helping us out with that sort of thing.

Re:Suggestion:

[characterZer0]

Can Redmond be second?

Make some money as well

[clarkkent09]

Rent them out to Israeli army for training purposes.

Re:Article mentions Baltimore

[Ironica]

The article mentions Baltimore, which makes sense. If you've ever visited some of the, shall we say, less popular portions of that city, you'll find block after block of boarded-up rowhouses.

But if they tear those down, where will Marlo Stanfield's crew hide the bodies?

Cor!

[dr_wheel]

"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."


Ya know they's in barney when the dustcarts dont' e'en have any rubbish to pick up!

Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX

[goffster]

"Schooled" is a strong word in this context. :)

Re:Nothing good can come of this...

[langelgjm]

Detroit (Homicide rate of 47.5%

Wow! With that homicide rate, we don't even have to worry about razing the city, there'll be practically no one left in a few years anyway.

Re:Nothing good can come of this...

[elrous0]

You needn't worry, citizen. OCP has assured the public that a relocation plan is already in place for all residents displaced by Delta City.

Re:Nothing good can come of this...

[Quiet_Desperation]

Both of which also have large ghetto type areas which house hundreds of people who I'm sure that most of us here wouldn't want living in our backyards.

Truth be told, I really don't want *anyone* living in my backyard.

Re:Nothing good can come of this...

[rev_sanchez]

Feral crackheads will swing from tree to tree like Tarzan, battling beast and man alike for dominion over the urban green spaces.

Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX

[SCPRedMage]

Oh snap, facts!

Re:As long as we're targeting nukes...

[sumdumass]

Can't we just drop a nuke in that fault line an send California into the pacific like in the Superman movie?

It's seems like a win win, California will be gone, we would have reduced our nuclear stockpile in the process, and millions of people in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and maybe parts of Idaho will now have prime beach front property therefor increasing their values. Shipping will come further inland which means less Fossil fuels needed to transport good across country and so on.

The only down side is if we advertise this before hand and all the Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts move throughout other states.

Re:Detroit

[Nautical Insanity]

According to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome#History [wikipedia.org] the population of Rome dropped to 20,000 after the fall of the empire. Considering that at its height, Rome had over a million residents, 20,000 people could be considered effectively abandoned.

While we're making Rome analogies, I'm kind of sad that I wouldn't live to see the Canadians move in, determined to rebuild Detroit to its former glory and make it the center of the Canadian Renaissance.

Re:Really a Shame

[wjousts]

My hometown in Minnesota shrinks all the time.

It's probably the cold that does that. Try giving it a vigorous rub and maybe blowing on it.

Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX

[Just Some Guy]

When did Carter live in Texas?

Re:Urban Decay?

[Anonymous Coward]

more succinctly, the government wants to defrag some cities.

Re:As long as we're targeting nukes...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Yeah, but what happens if instead, everything east of the San Andreas fault sinks into the Atlantic ocean?

Re:Urban Transit

[Chris Burke]

Shame too, because it's a surprisingly nice place to live when it isn't winter

Yeah, I've been there, and I gotta say, those three days are awesome. I hear summer falls on a Saturday this year so the Alaskans should be happy!

Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX

[mrdoogee]

The cars that the corner shop down my street makes are awful.

Re:Escape from LA (or NY)?

[mrdoogee]

Although, I'll bet its on a number of people's to-do lists.

Re:there's opportunity in this

[NouberNou]

Right on! What we in the Pacific Northwest need to worry about is more people from the Midwest moving here, and for that matter Californian refugees migrating north!

New Detroit

[engmike8]

"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."

Sounds like New Detroit and RoboCop!

Re:As long as we're targeting nukes...

[Saxerman]

Snake Pliskin? I heard he was dead.