US Plans To Bulldoze 50 Shrinking Cities 806
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."
Urban Transit (Score:5, Insightful)
White flight into the suburbs has brought us nothing but Wal-Mart and SUV's. I grew up in a suburb, and I hated how I was not able to go anywhere without a ride from my parents because everything was so far apart. Should I have children, I will not put them through that sort of social isolation.
Fantastic (Score:2, Insightful)
The great depression brought us some awesome things in parks.
Maybe this one can lead to some awesome parks.
Detroit (Score:3, Insightful)
Pollution? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think someone seriously underestimated the hazardous nature of building materials. R
azing a building containing asbestos [wikipedia.org] or Ammonium bromide [wikipedia.org] which a lot of older buildings contain (fireproofing) and just leaving it there is quite stupid!
Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX (Score:3, Insightful)
Laugh, while they slowly kill you, America.
This is no joke. You are living in some post-apocalypse vision from J.G. Ballard, and yet you use this as an opportunity to jest. This is not the result of some lack or inability on the part of one community or another.
Rather it is the gradual outcome of steady, oligarchal corporate piracy and class war. Here's the kicker: That's the super-rich class, versus all others. You middle-class allies are no longer needed, now the looting is complete. You are now in the avenue of destruction - but they'll have you at each other's throats over false ideological dichotomies instead of turning on the real villains of history.
"Shrink!" It's the new Growth! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's obvious that the kind of home growth that we saw over the last ten years is not sustainable for any substantial amount of time. And it's a little ironic that many of the same construction companies that were thrown together to build the homes might transition into companies that are hired to tear down the very same homes... but, having said that, nothing makes me happier to think that we might rollback at least some of the ugly brown areas and return them to Nature.
Re:Urban Decay? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here I thought we were supposed to encourage people to move back into cities so high population densities would make mass transit more viable. Silly me.
Actually, if you read the article, I think you'll find that's exactly the idea (and not just making mass transit viable, also garbage collection, policing, etc). The idea is to compact the city that has become only sparsely populated due to everybody leaving, into one or more denser pockets. The problem, of course, is that some old geezer isn't going to want to move out of the old neighborhood and will end up being the only one in the middle of nowhere but still expect his mail to be delivered to his door.
Re:Seems like a good idea (Score:3, Insightful)
No reason you can't save the historical sites while demolishing the rest of the neighborhood. If there's a significant building, build a park around it. It'll be in the middle of the wilderness, but that'll just make it all the more interesting.
I suspect people will be a lot more likely to pay attention to historic sites when they're not in the middle of a boarded-up section of town, and it might be better for the buildings in the long run, since they're less likely to be destroyed in a fire. (Wildfires would be a problem, admittedly.)
I don't think that historical preservation and getting rid of hazardous, blighted buildings are mutually exclusive. You just need to achieve some sort of balance. Not every old rowhouse is really "historic," and not every building needs to come down just because it's in a crappy neighborhood and has some peeling paint. A few significant buildings here and there can stay, and won't impact wildlife if they're managed correctly.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing good can come of this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? Relocate what people? The article mentions that much of this property is already empty/abandoned. Maintaining infrastructure to support large swaths of city that are relatively empty doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
One would think that people would not be fleeing "desirable" parts of town so I don't see any issue with the city "decommissioning" underutilized parcels of land and reallocating resources to areas where people actually want to live.
Surely, the squeaky clean politicians in that area don't have any plans to clue in their cronies to areas about to be decommissioned so that those folks can snap them up on the cheap and then sell them to the gummint at a profit? Nah...
Best,
good, but how much will it cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue to me is that hyperinflation that occurred during the early and mid 200's, and the hyperdeflation we are now living with. During the inflatory period, everyone was taking fictional money out of their fictional property values to buy real goods. Banks made money, people got stuff, everyone was happy. The problem now is that, like it was with credit cards, people owe more than they possible can pay, and so the best thing to do is to walk away from the house. All this is covered by taxpayers. We can complain, but nothing can be done.
I think we just need to admit we have lived through 8 years of insanity, a national coke addiction, get over it, and move on. We don't need to pass blame, or punish people, just solve problems. If population is declining, and there are no jobs, and no people to live in the homes, then let's raze the land and return it to natural habitat. Hell, I say with a significant portion of a development is empty, pay the people to move, and raze the whole thing.
But we do have families without homes. Families who were priced out of home given the greed of the home investors at the expense of the home owners. It seems that since we have already bailed out the banks and the taxpayers have already in effect covered those mortgages, it seems that the FHA could help families move into the foreclosed homes. Right now the FHA does not want to deal with the average foreclosed home. Right now the FHA thinks that homeless is better than a imperfect home. That a leaky roof is worse than no roof at all. So it seems to me that there is a lot of housing available, and a lot of demand for cheap housing. When I say this the first time, and I saw the brookings institute, I saw it as a plot to maintain unsustainable property values rather than an way to help the country move forward.
Re:As long as we're targeting nukes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Californian here! Can Sacramento go third?
Californian here! Can California go third?
There, fixed that for ya.
Re:Urban Decay? (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the point of this is to raise population densities. Right now you have huge tracts of abandoned buildings, with people living here and there among them. It's a huge drain on public resources (providing police and, especially, fire protection to all the abandoned buildings), and doesn't really foster healthy communities.
Most of the plans that I've seen, including the one in Flint, involve buying up abandoned properties and demolishing them, while simultaneously restoring ones in better areas and encouraging people to move from blighted areas into them. The result is condensing the remaining residents of the city into a smaller, more densely-populated area. More public services in a smaller area, better public transportation, etc.
They're not trying to chase people out of the cities and into the suburbs or exurbs, quite the opposite. Most of the areas they're trying to get rid of were the original suburbs, and what they are trying to achieve is a rebuilding of the urban core.
Yeah, it would be great to get people to move in from the suburbs and fill in the high-density rowhousing in places like Baltimore, but that's just not going to happen. Nobody wants to live there, not given the way the areas are now. And those areas aren't going to get better. What's needed is a "rebooting" of cities -- get people back into the core areas, demolish some of the older urban/suburban transitional areas, and show that cities actually work. When people out in the 'burbs see that a city can be a nice place to live again, and not just a ghetto for people who have nowhere else to go, then it'll be time for new construction. (But this time, build mixed-use and actually plan the growth, rather than just letting stuff grow and create huge tracts of transportation-dependent, single-use housing, miles away from commercial or industrial areas.)
This is the first step towards making cities desirable again.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:2, Insightful)
The modern suburban lifestyle, with long school days, long bus rides home from school, and too much homework doesn't leave enough daylight for today's fat kids to be able to bike a few miles to a friend's house, have some fun, and bike home for dinner.
Re:there's opportunity in this (Score:4, Insightful)
Hint: "out west" consists of more than California. I envision exactly nobody leaving the Pacific Northwest for anything in the midwest.
Oh, by the way: Portland (and Oregon at-large) pretty much pioneered the urban planning and growth boundary system that you are cheerleading with your car-hate and enviro-spew in the 1970s.
Re:Nothing good can come of this... (Score:4, Insightful)
You just said only minority groups live in poor neighborhoods. That's racism if I've ever heard it.
Your house without you (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at http://www.worldwithoutus.com/index2.html [worldwithoutus.com]. Houses decay if they are not maintained. They decay rather rapidly. Unless ownership can be conveyed in some fashion to attentive stewards, a house will come down one way or another. Far better to plan the inevitable downsizing than to pretend it isn't going to happen.
All engineering should consider the full lifecycle. These houses were built in more optimistic times, but was it thought they would stand forever? The only real difference between sustainable technologies and cancerous growth is that the plan for obsolescence includes the needs of the many, not just the wants of the few.
"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he toils under the sun?
i can hear "Ride Of The Valkyries" (Score:2, Insightful)
while i read your post and the one you are responding to
zzz
maybe he is modded off topic because he is more concerned with grudges and overarching indictments and acid-laced blame than anything useful
people who are consumed by pointing fingers and little more are yet a further symptom of any societal blight you or the post you are responding to describes
the way out of any problem in this world is positive, optimistic ideas and attitudes, regardless of what got you there
not useless, pointless doom and gloom
and so he is off-topic, and correctly modded as such: his post has more to do with acting out his psychological damage than anything anyone else wants to read or might find useful
maybe he has good reason to be bitter. maybe his indictments are valid. but he needs to reach a point where the words that come out of his mouth are constructive, before anything he says is of any value to anyone else
until then: -1, off-topic. the correct mod
Re:Urban Transit (Score:5, Insightful)
That was great as long as my friends lived a few blocks away in the same development, or something. But at least some of my friends live 5-10 miles away, where I'd kind of have to ride my bike on the highway. The 'burbs are often just poorly designed for any mode of transport except car.
While I can... (Score:3, Insightful)
While I can see the merit of this from the perspective of the city having to deal with the upkeep of such lands, my mind keeps coming back to the idea that this is more a move to increase, or bolster, declining property values by simply adjusting supply in regards to demand.
Is this a move on the part of the "haves" trying to maintain the value of property that they will be selling/renting to the "have-nots"?
Despite the common-sense this proposal appears to be based on, I cannot seem to shake the feeling that this may not be in the best interests of those most hurt by the current recession. Sure, maybe this will free up tax dollars for more important programs, but will it drive up rent prices and nullify any savings for the low-income familys? Will those freed-up tax dollars simply be spent on rent subsidies?
The one good thing in all this, something I have no doubt about, is the return to nature. Now, THAT is something I have a hard time finding fault with.
All in all, maybe we should give it a little more time to examine the long-term results of this plan before throwing the rest of the country into 'dozer mode.
Re:i can hear "Ride Of The Valkyries" (Score:4, Insightful)
"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves that make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them that we are missing."
--Gamel Abdel Nasser
Wouldn't say that (Score:3, Insightful)
You act as though any self respecting person needs any additional reasons to hate the worst president to ever be inflicted upon the country.
Even though Obama is taking the country downhill faster than Carter, that's no reason to hate him - instead just gently remind him and the Democrats the reason people voted for them.
Re:Nothing good can come of this... (Score:4, Insightful)
How this isn't considered "ethnically cleansing" cities is beyond me. It seems as if the only people who would be affected negatively would be minority groups.
This is a good point and a valid concern, but it depends a bit on the areas they're getting rid of. There may be large areas that are essentially empty anyway, and maybe lots of those buildings are in bad shape (and maybe should even be condemned). I'm not too familiar with the cities in question, but the scenario doesn't seem completely impossible.
Also, for anyone who is displaced, they could choose to offer some other kinds of options for relocation, which wouldn't necessarily drive people out of the city. Maybe they could offer some alternative low-incoming housing for people who can't afford to simply move?
Anyway, it generally sounds like a good idea to me. For economic, environmental, and even social/cultural/health reasons, I think that our country would be well served by aiming to increase population density in specific areas (i.e. move people in cities into more compact cities, move people in suburbs into cities, even moving farming closer to cities, and leave more of the country open to nature).
In larger population densities, you can more easily (economically) provide better services to more people. Assuming things are done right, Infrastructure becomes cheaper to build and maintain. Having people live in cities is generally much more energy efficient per-person. Ignoring air pollution issues, people who live in cities are often thinner and healthier.
There are trade-offs, yes, but I think the suburbs sort of need to die. People don't realize that they're a relatively recent invention (suburbs arguably didn't exist until about half a century ago), and I think it's a social experiment which has failed.
There is a lot to be said for economic status (Score:1, Insightful)
Posting AC so my karma doesn't take the hit for this.
As to the GP, hell yeah. I have a 1 1/2 year old toddler and I can't wait to get the hell out of the city and live among those "like me".
I have a nephew who goes to the local school system. Guards with pepper spray in the lunchroom to break up the nearly daily fights the black kids get into. Metal scanners at the doors. People doing drugs on the steps before class. No supervision, no money, no nothing. The teachers have given up years ago. Nobody gets an education there. Just drugs and violence and apathy.
Fuck that.
My parents moved out of the exact same city I'm in and into the suburbs when I was a toddler for the same reasons. And my college degree, good job and already paid off house are strong evidence that they did the right thing for their son. And I intend to do the same thing for mine.
There's politically correct, then there's taking a melon baller and gouging out your eyeballs trying not to see certain things. Come live in the city a while. You wouldn't want your kid growing up to be one of these no-future degenerates, I promise you.
Re:Nothing good can come of this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? Relocate what people? The article mentions that much of this property is already empty/abandoned.
Won't somebody think of the squatters?!
Re:Make some money as well (Score:2, Insightful)
You wouldn't get any business. The Israelis have already demonstrated mastery in demolition of low cost housing in depressed areas. In fact, they should compete for the demolition contract. With their Apache attack helicopters and Merkava tanks, they'd probably have reduced the less savory areas of Detroit to rubble before you can say "Gaza Strip".
Re:Article mentions Baltimore (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of cities were hit by middle and upper class people leaving the city and going to the suburbs but I think Baltimore may have been hit even worse than most. Why live in Baltimore when you can live in Columbia and have access to the jobs of Washington DC as well as Baltimore? When people leave they take their tax base with them. The drop in taxes cause drops in services such as schools and police -- this forces even more people to leave. Wash rinse repeat and soon you have a city that once had a population of 1 million but now has a population closer to 500,000. You also have a school system and police force that can barely keep up (and often can't keep up at all) with a poorer and poorer population that needs the services even more. Maryland has one of the highest median house hold incomes of any state in the union but Baltimore hardly gets enough money to try and keep the city going. So Baltimore has these problems but I don't think you can say that Maryland is part of the rust belt. Baltimore does have a handful of trendy neighborhoods that middle class people do want to live in, but sadly those neighborhoods are the exception. I guess if you bulldoze those houses that aren't used anymore you would increase the value of the houses that are still standing. I guess a large number of parks that people might be able to enjoy would be better than vast number of boarded-up houses we have now.
Re:Fantastic (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had the points I'd give them to you.
A few years back we had this old, gorgeous house on the edge of town whose owners died and left heirless. One group wanted it razed for nature, another want it preserved. Group B raised millions to relocate it. Long story short, the millions were used to raze it and a strip mall was built. The truth be told beauty is a resource that is only fit for destruction. If you don't agree with that, well, there are a million ass-holes who will be more than happy to do it for you.
All these razed swaths are going to do is become cheap development land that is cleared off at the tax payers expense.
Re:Nothing good can come of this... (Score:3, Insightful)
M'Lord, I believe the common folk refer to that as "statistics".
Racism is ignoring such glaringly obvious disparities so you don't have to do anything about them or investigate what caused them.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes pack all of the children into Harlem, the Bronx and the worst parts of Brooklyn & Queens (Its truly horrible in some places).
Take your kids out of nature, grass, trees, clean air... and pack them into a filthy concrete jungle full of extreme poverty and extreme wealth. Ask them to inhail that dark purple thick air that circulates the city... which is only visible from OUTSIDE the city when looking in :)
Yes Mom will no longer have to give you a ride anywhere. Your kids can now either stay locked up in that closet you call an apartment (which costs $2500+ a month.) or they can venture out onto the subways, buses and crowded sidewalks were on average they will meet 1 prostitue, 10 illegal street venders, and 400 other children who's parents dont give a DAMN about them and how they're raised because like you... they let their kids run around in a city.
White Flight isnt so bad when you realize what families were escaping to.
The city has a lot to offer, but its generally better for single adults or married adults with carears rather than children. Having children in a city like NY... SUCKS.
Re:Seems like a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX (Score:1, Insightful)
Wow, negative one, troll.... cool!
Just think, you could've wasted that on a real troll rather than someone you disagreed with politically. Rock on, Mr. Mod.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize not every city is a post-apocalyptic hellhole, right? There are options other than living in a gang warzone or living in a secluded suburb miles from anything.
Perhaps you should get out of your suburb more.
Re:is this some sort of quote (Score:2, Insightful)
In the corporate context, a "positive mental attitude" is a convenient tool of denial that keeps you engaged toward a goal regardless of your circumstances. This seems to be your mindset.
In the real world, sometimes you're better off recognizing an unpleasant reality for what it is. Tarting it up with feel-good slogans and rank falseness may make it more palatable to genteel sensibilities, but it's counterproductive and does nothing to prevent the same mistakes in the future.
Re:Nothing good can come of this... (Score:3, Insightful)
He used the word "only." That's not just racism to minorities, it further marginalizes poor whites.
Growing up a poor white kid in Appalachia is worse than a poor black kid in the city. Not only do you have all the disadvantages of being poor, but also: nobody gives a shit about you.
I'm sick of you racists thinking you can get away with it because its PC to be a racist toward certain groups.
Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking of Talking Heads..
Here we stand
Like an Adam and an Eve
Waterfalls
The Garden of Eden
Two fools in love
So beautiful and strong
The birds in the trees
Are smiling upon them
From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline
Where, where have they gone?
Now, it's nothing but flowers
There was a factory
Now there are mountains and rivers
you got it, you got it
We caught a rattlesnake
Now we got something for dinner
we got it, we got it
There was a shopping mall
Now it's all covered with flowers
you've got it, you've got it
If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
you've got it, you've got it
Years ago
I was an angry young man
I'd pretend
That I was a billboard
Standing tall
By the side of the road
I fell in love
With a beautiful highway
This used to be real estate
Now it's only fields and trees
Where, where is the town
Now, it's nothing but flowers
The highways and cars
Were sacrificed for agriculture
I thought that we'd start over
But I guess I was wrong
Once there were parking lots
Now it's a peaceful oasis
you got it, you got it
This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies
you got it, you got it
I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
you got it, you got it
And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
you got it, you got it
I dream of cherry pies,
Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
you got it, you got it
We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries
you got it, you got it
This was a discount store,
Now it's turned into a cornfield
you got it, you got it
Don't leave me stranded here
I can't get used to this lifestyle
destroy property, reduce supply, prop up banks (Score:4, Insightful)
"...And the failure hands over the State like a great sorrow. The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit--and kerosene spayed over the golden mountains." - From "The Grapes of Wrath", John Steinbeck 1939
Is it a vast conspiracy? (Score:1, Insightful)
The city I live in keeps raising taxes on me while the high school graduation rate is less than 40% and unemployment and foreclosures are booming. Meanwhile, the suburbs of the same town have an 85%+ graduation rate, almost no crime, and great schools. Why the hell should I want to stick around to pay more taxes while they cut funding for police and my home value declines?
This could get ugly if people don't go along quietly.
Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX (Score:2, Insightful)
Define 'better' before this continues. Now it can't be SAT scores since Gore did got about 100 points more. So was it just raw grades from college you're counting? Because they went to different universities and majored in different topics. It'd sure make things easier if those were comparable figures, but if they were I know our chemical engineers here would look like complete dumbasses compared to our psych and business majors.
Re:As long as we're targeting nukes... (Score:1, Insightful)
It's seems like a win win, California will be gone, we would have reduced our nuclear stockpile in the process,
Yes, but the big lose is that California pays most of the bills. You'd have to start carrying your own weight when they weren't around to make your welfare payments, and you know you aren't willing to do that or you wouldn't be leeching off of them in the first place.
Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:3 more uses for parts of disused cities (Score:4, Insightful)
I imagine it quickly converts to tent-city with no sanitation or trash pickup.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, It may be true statistically speaking but I don't fear driving a car as I do standing on the street minding my own business while two idiots shoot at each other while trying to run away at the same time and emptying 8 or 9 or more rounds of ammo each.
I've seen it happen live on multiple occasions, one of which I was less then 5 foot from one of the gang bangers who got shot. I'm not scared of guns, I own my own, I wouldn't have any reservations shooting someone to protect myself or someone else
I've got a hot tip for you: if you've seen this multiple times, move somewhere that isn't a hellhole.
Abandon your worldly possessions to do so if needs be. A place where this happens is not human-friendly.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:3 more uses for parts of disused cities (Score:2, Insightful)
There is an abandoned city in the US that is protected and is in fact being used in the Darpa robotic vehicle testing, its old army housing.
There are also a number of ghost towns in the US that one could study.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention the perverts who like to kidnap and molest children.
Who, for the most part, don't actually exist.
Re:Better places in Ohio to run a bulldozer (Score:4, Insightful)
It's an incredibly racist proposal, whether you realized it or not.
It's not simply picking places full of residents you don't like and/or are scared of.
Oh for fuck's sake. I only know the part I drive through. It's a lot of abandoned factories on/near the lake. It reminds me of the abandoned industrial area they shot the last part of Robocop in. It's an abandoned graffiti magnet. I wasn't suggesting leveling the suburbs. The east side of Cleveland proper though - nobody would miss it. It would make a lovely park.
And BTW, there is nothing more annoying than being accused of racism when it's not warranted. Not everyone evaluates every single fucking thing they say for their impact on whatever ethnic group anyone might personally have a bug up their ass about. Part of the trouble in this country is that people feel they have a right to never be offended, so they're constantly on the lookout for things that do. Strangely enough, these people perpetuate the racism they loudly claim to despise by constantly making it an issue. Let me tell you something about racism. It's boring. And the people who keep bringing it up are crashing bores as well.
You're one of these people.
So if I've offended you, please let me state this in the strongest possible way: Get bent.
Re:concentration camps (Score:5, Insightful)
Relocating population from sparsely populated area into that of a smaller area does allow the government to more easily monitor and control the said population as there are now substantially smaller area to cover.
You're absolutely right about that; it's a lot cheaper to provide effective law enforcement to a denser population. Same goes for fire stations, schools, sewer maintenance, water and power...
It doesn't have to be evil just because the government is doing it.
Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Urban Transit (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had a choice of putting my kids through that or a car accident, I would pick the car accident any day.
Then you've never seen a bad car accident.
I was in emergency medicine for nine years, first as a military medic, then as a civilian EMT. I've seen plenty of gunshots and plenty of crashes. There is nothing that happens in a gang war that can make the kind of mess out of a human body that a moment of inattention on the road can. As far as deliberate violence goes, you have to get to bombs and artillery before you see that kind of destruction -- and street criminals don't generally go after each other with howitzers and B-52s.
You think you were traumatized by watching someone getting shot? Try picking up pieces of bodies strewn across half a mile of highway.
Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX (Score:1, Insightful)
Their immigration laws (in the Texan mind, not in reality) are stricter than any in the universe.
It is probably hard to understand for someone who is not from Texas or has been there quite a lot, but apparently anybody can be a "texan" but nobody can _really_ be a Texan unless you were born there or you invented something really god dang impressive while you where in the state of Texas.
So just forget arguing the point, let it go, go do something else.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:1, Insightful)
But it's true for the cities mentioned in the article that are candidates for being bulldozed. People still leave in droves to get away from the crime, high taxes, horrible schools, and other BS done by the city. People 'vote with their feet' and put up with commuting in order to not deal with that.
Also, they aren't 'compacting' the cities to make everything closer together. They are leveling abandoned neighborhoods and removing the municipal services to those areas to reduce costs and get rid of eyesores in the process. People will still have to make a car or bus trip to do their shopping/go to work/whatever. The resulting green spaces will be essentially monuments to the incompetent and corrupt politicians that have dominated those cities since the 1960s.
I personally hate cities, especially the one I'm currently forced to live in. I'd buy a ticket to be able to drive a dozer for a half hour or so of entertainment of destroying some of the shitholes around here.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:5, Insightful)
Philly? My wife went to Temple University in downtown Philly. This was in the 80s, so I don't know if it's changed (I doubt it), but back then it was absolutely unsafe for a female college student (especially a white one) to leave the campus boundaries as she'd probably be gang-raped. In fact, thugs from the surrounding 'hoods sometimes snuck into the dorms to rape college girls. This happened to my wife, who found one of these vermin in the community bathroom on her dorm's floor one night. Luckily, she got away from him, he was caught by the RA leaving the building, and he went to prison for attempted rape thanks to her testimony.
So no, I'll pass on living in downtown Philly, thanks.
Re:Urban Transit (Score:3, Insightful)
Volunteer fire here, I have seen what you are talking about. However, the point wasn't the the gore was the problem, it was all the bullets whizzing by why people die and the random chance of one of them hitting you. You can be safe and avoid most car accidents (it takes two or however many people involved to avoid all traffic accidents). Outside of holding up in a hole somewhere, you can't really control someone else' shooting in your direction who is so pumped up in adrenalin and drugs that they can't hit their target but are satisfied with reloading and trying again.
In the gun fight, it's like dodging 20 accidents in 5 minutes compared to one every five or so years. There is a lot more to the psyche then the gore.
Re:Perhaps can start with Crawford, TX (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Urban Transit (Score:2, Insightful)