During the glory days of the 1950s, Detroit was a booming metropolis of approximately 2 million people, but now young people have left in droves and the current population is less than a million. The true unemployment rate for those still living in Detroit is estimated to be somewhere around 45 to 50 percent, and poverty and desperation have become entrenched everywhere. In many areas of the city, only one or two houses remain occupied an an entire city block. In fact, some areas of Detroit have so many vacant, burned-out homes that they literally look like war zones. And yes, it is true that there are actually some houses in Detroit that you can actually buy for just one dollar. According to one recent estimate, Detroit has 33,500 empty houses and 91,000 vacant residential lots. So what can be done when an entire city experiences economic collapse?

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Flint, Michigan has already torn down approximately 1,100 houses mostly in outlying areas. The program in Flint was actually the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes the city of Flint.

In Flint, no residents are forced out of their homes unwillingly. Instead, the city has been buying up houses in more affluent areas of Flint to offer to those in areas that the city wishes to bulldoze.

The program in Flint has been so successful that Mr. Kildee has been asked to help implement it in other cities that are in decline.

And there are a whole lot of U.S. cities that are in a serious state of decline – mostly in what is known as “the Rust Belt” of America. Because of reckless U.S. trade policies, the once great U.S. manufacturing base centered in the Rust Belt has been dismantled and those jobs simply are never going to come back.

via The Mayor Of Detroit’s Radical Plan To Bulldoze One Quarter Of The City – Regional News on KFGO.com.

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