XPost: alt.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.liberalism, alt.politics.democrats.d   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: biden-the-crook@msnbc.com   
      
   In article    
    wrote:   
   >   
   > ...Biden is done, stick a fork in him.   
      
   Shades of Obama's economic incompetence.  Flash forward to Joe   
   Biden in 2022.  The stench of Obama is everywhere.   
      
   Detroit's bankruptcy can in part be traced to the loss of more   
   than a million residents. So how have other "shrinking" US   
   cities coped?   
      
   The problems that have led Detroit to bankruptcy are multiple -   
   industrial decline, huge pension bills, over-borrowing and poor   
   management among them.   
      
   But losing 1.2 million people since the 1950s would send any   
   city into crisis. As the jobs and the inhabitants went   
   elsewhere, the city was left with plummeting tax receipts,   
   rising crime and derelict streets .   
      
   Other cities in the Rust Belt have also lost huge proportions of   
   their populations. What have they done about it?   
      
   1. Demolish derelict buildings...   
      
   Some cities have developed a demolition industry, mindful that   
   abandoned homes fuel vandalism, blight neighbourhoods and deter   
   new arrivals.   
      
   Youngstown, Ohio, has lost 120,000 residents since the 1950s,   
   now down to 66,000 people. In the last six years, it has pulled   
   down 4,000 homes, says councillor Janet Tarpley, who represents   
   the sixth district, where much of this demolition has taken   
   place.   
      
   "Crime has been reduced since we have been tearing down homes,"   
   she says. "Some of them were being used to launder stolen goods   
   and run prostitution and drugs rings. Squatters were moving in   
   and just staying. So the quality of life has improved for many   
   residents."   
      
   The area looks a lot better than it did in 2008 when she took   
   office, says Tarpley, who knocks on doors and tells residents to   
   cut their grass when it looks unsightly. Those who don't comply   
   get a visit from a council lawnmower and have to pay the costs.   
      
   But the large-scale demolition has its critics. For a start,   
   it's expensive - about $10,000 (£6,550) a house. And some   
   residents say it has wiped out neighbourhoods and prevented   
   property developers from investing. "Trees don't pay taxes" is   
   the mantra of some opponents to demolition.   
      
   2. ...and sell the land for $25   
      
   Imagine you get a knock on your door and someone is offering you   
   all the land next door - for just $25 (£16).   
      
   That's what has happened in Flint, Michigan, where the   
   population is half what it was 50 years ago. In 2002, Flint-born   
   Dan Kildee, now a congressman, set up a system there called land   
   banks, which take ownership of derelict private properties.   
      
   "There's an abandoned house on a street," he explains. "We get   
   that property through tax foreclosure, when the owner stops   
   paying taxes. Instead of auctioning it off to somebody on the   
   internet, we put it in the land bank.   
      
   "And because we have too many houses in a city that's lost lots   
   of population, we bite the bullet and demolish this abandoned   
   structure that's obsolete. We knock on the door of the next door   
   neighbour, who's been paying a heavy price of living next door   
   to this abandoned house. And for just $25, we sell that next   
   door lot after it's been cleaned."   
      
   So instead of having a family home next to a big, empty reminder   
   of what was once there, he says, there is a house with 80-foot   
   (24-metre) grounds, upon which the family may build a garage, a   
   playground or a driveway. "It's a productive part of the   
   landscape."   
      
   3. Accept that smaller can be better   
      
   "That's a very tough thing for Americans to get their head   
   around," says Kildee, who in 2010 co-founded the Center for   
   Community Progress, which helps rebuild urban neighbourhoods.   
      
   "The very psyche for the American people was based on westward   
   expansion, our manifest destiny. Growth and prosperity were the   
   same thing.   
      
   "But that means very little to a person living in a city that   
   has lost population and is not likely to regain it. We need to   
   rethink how we define prosperity."   
      
   4. Build institutions   
      
   Pittsburgh is widely held up as a success story in reinvention,   
   hosting the G20 summit in 2009, but it's cashing cheques that   
   were written 50 years ago, says Professor Michael Madison from   
   the University of Pittsburgh.   
      
   The Allegheny Conference on Community Development (the ACCD) was   
   formed in the 1940s, when some leading steel industry players   
   joined with the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County to   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)