Liberal Government Planners: We Must Bulldoze Cities In Order To Survive

Proof • June 13, 2009

It’s not so much the bulldozing that really bothers me about the news of emptied cities in Michigan. With entire swaths of these cities almost entirely empty, tearing down the decrepit housing littering the area makes sense. And certainly if a city is emptying out it makes sense to contract the municipality down for the sake of efficiency.
It’s this that bothers me:

Flint’s recovery efforts have been helped by a new state law passed a few years ago which allowed local governments to buy up empty properties very cheaply.
They could then knock them down or sell them on to owners who will occupy them. The city wants to specialise in health and education services, both areas which cannot easily be relocated abroad.
The local authority has restored the city’s attractive but formerly deserted centre but has pulled down 1,100 abandoned homes in outlying areas.
Mr Kildee estimated another 3,000 needed to be demolished, although the city boundaries will remain the same.

So the big government types are using the economic malaise to accumulate more power for themselves. They’re buying up private property. Tearing down houses. They’ve even planned what sort of economy they want the city to have in the future. “Health and education services,” apparently.
If you want to know the truth, it’s exactly this sort of attempts at big government take over and economic planning that got the state of Michigan to where it’s at now. Michigan has the worst economy in the nation, by far. Sky-high taxes. Endless amounts of regulation and government intervention. Michigan is also one of the most liberal enclaves in America as well, and has one of the most unionized labor forces. Do you think that it’s merely an accident that this state is emptying out?
By all means, contract city services so that you aren’t collecting garbage in areas where nobody lives. But the last thing any community in Michigan needs is a bunch of liberals on a central planning kick.
On a related note, the article says that state law allows these cities to buy up empty property “cheaply.” So what rights to the property owners have? Do they have to sell to the government? Can they reject the government’s offered price if they don’t find it appropriate? Or do they simply have to give up their property to the government on the government’s term for the sake of the “greater good”?

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

http://www.rabidamerican.net/ Rabid American

Typical Lefty considerations, when things get tough you destroy private property…..

Is this going to counted in the jobs “created or saved”?

I guess the Chinese had the right idea when they created that huge dam….. they flattened the cities in the way for the sake of progress…….
http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/ Chief RZ

Does anyone remember the leftist chant against supposed actions by our troops?
Destroy the village (city in this case) in order to “save” it. BHO’s new word, saving=destroying.
rog

I like the guy hunting and selling raccoon meat in inner city detroit. democrat prosperity ai its best
robert108

Big cities tend to be leftie, due to the dependence on city services to simply live. Small towns and cities tend to be more independent, which the totalitarian collectivist in the White House doesn’t like.
11B40

Greetings:

I grew up in the Bronx and was still there when it was given the Dresden-lite treatment in the late ’60s and ’70s. Bit by bit, large swatches of viable housing stock were put to the torch and subsequently depopulated. It was then, and remains today, an emotional experience for me even though I evacuated from the area.

During that period, I had been studying some economics as my college minor. My Urban Economics professor, an admitted Marxist and a natural teacher, predicted what was to be renamed “the South Bronx” was being depopulated to establish an industrial zone within a geographic triangle of three expressways, the Cross-Bronx, the Major Deegan and the Bruckner. There was great logic to his prediction due to the area’s proximity to Manhattan, Long Island and northern New Jersey. But nothing much ever came of it.

With the recent Supreme Court decisions concerning eminent domain, I don’t see much of a problem for local governments in seizing private property in “blighted areas”. The property values and taxes would be extremely low. However, if you have a blighted urban area and you turn it into parkland, you just bought yourself no taxes and more maintenance costs, no exactly a business plan in my opinion.
2Hotel9

This is called for in several failed UN plans to “remodel” the world.
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

Michigan has the worst economy in the nation, by far. Sky-high taxes. Endless amounts of regulation and government intervention. Michigan

A state that is run by the left.
http://www.rabidamerican.net/ Rabid American

Change You Can Believe In!
Obama Campaign
moxyfire

Michigan has the worst economy in the nation, by far. Sky-high taxes. Endless amounts of regulation and government intervention. Michigan

You are forgetting about Illinois. Our economy sucks pretty hard-core. Of course, we are big time libs around here.
http://northerngleaner.blogspot.com/ Gene

I have visions of inner city flint with a section of land cleared and planted into grass and trees. Pheasants, deer grouse. Hunting.

Not that makes some sense.

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Liberal Government Planners: We Must Bulldoze Cities In Order To Survive

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