Having experienced East St. Louis (and most of North St. Louis), reading about places like Detroit and Buffalo, I start to wonder, at one point do we just decide to 'give up' on a city?
Are there modern cases of abandonment of a major metropolitan area? (I don't mean losing 50+% of population, or large-scale migration to the suburbs like STL, I mean actual wholesale abandonment of a city).
It seems that with hundreds of thousands of people, Detroit and NOLA are still going to survive for quite a while, but at what point do we just declare a city below critical-mass for survival and start working on transitioning people out?
At some point it has to cost far more to provide fire and other basic service coverage to these heavily-built but sparsely inhabited areas than they could ever hope to return in revenue. Cities regularly clear out large areas for urban rehab or sports stadiums, would it be plausible (if even ethical) to just buy out 50,000 people and ask them to leave?
It's hard to imagine anything on that scale. Centralia PA (former pop. 2600) was deserted due to major underground fires. But real cities have bounced back from far larger disasters. Hiroshima lost 2/3 of its population but recovered in 10 years.
Remember, though, the actual city of Detroit is only 1/5 of the population of the metro area. While Detroit is failing, the metro area is only hurting. It won't be abandoned.
I'm not so sure giving up on a city would work so well unless you leveled it, ripped out the entire infrastructure and planted a lot of flowers.
At any rate, abandoning and ripping down historic architecture and craftsmanship is a terrible waste. Especially if you're just going to replace it with cardboard buildings and fancy facades. I think we'd be better off throwing the money at a group of un-corruptible, "really smart" people. There is a real opportunity to experiment with urban planning, development, and social programs to see if there is any way to turn it around.
If I had my way, I'd just build a wall around the city and turn it into a prison. Imagine how much wealth you could create making reality tv shows "from within the wall."
> I think we'd be better off throwing the money at a group of un-corruptible, "really smart" people. There is a real opportunity to experiment with urban planning, development, and social programs to see if there is any way to turn it around.
If 'throwing the money at a group of un-corruptible, "really smart" people' was an actual option, would Detroit be in the state that it's in?
> There is a real opportunity to experiment with urban planning, development, and social programs to see if there is any way to turn it around.
How do you think Detroit got to be the way that it is?
There have been a few that have been abandoned for environmental reasons. Prypiat, Ukraine comes to mind as one example. In that case, all 50,000 residents were forced to quickly abandon the city due to the nearby Chernobyl accident.
Are there modern cases of abandonment of a major metropolitan area? (I don't mean losing 50+% of population, or large-scale migration to the suburbs like STL, I mean actual wholesale abandonment of a city).
It seems that with hundreds of thousands of people, Detroit and NOLA are still going to survive for quite a while, but at what point do we just declare a city below critical-mass for survival and start working on transitioning people out?
At some point it has to cost far more to provide fire and other basic service coverage to these heavily-built but sparsely inhabited areas than they could ever hope to return in revenue. Cities regularly clear out large areas for urban rehab or sports stadiums, would it be plausible (if even ethical) to just buy out 50,000 people and ask them to leave?