US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline.I'm really beginning to eat crow over my comments that the government response to this depression isn't all that much like the response to the Great Depression. I was too impatient and too optimistic; it is turning out to be far worse today. In the 30's, they dumped milk in the street and slaughtered livestock to drive up agricultural prices. Today, it looks like we'll be bulldozing our way through a housing surplus. And in Michigan's case, a city surplus! Nothing like rampant destruction and wasted resources to turn an economy up! At least I suppose it is better than looting and burning our way through them. But we may be saving that approach as part of a more robust stimulus package in the coming years after the present plan wears off. You know, the one we implement before we turn fascist and start firebombing other countries.The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.
Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Potential Solution to the Housing Crisis
Bulldoze the suckers!:
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I thought we already were firebombing other countries. Or was that your point?
ReplyDeleteActually, hadn't thought of that. But it is true: we are already in a "wartime economy," wasting resources destroying other people's resources. Which all started in ~2001, some would say in response to that economic downturn.
ReplyDeleteBut that really doesn't compare to the firebombing I meant to refer to: the events of WWII, London, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki & the like. Today's actions are small potatoes compared to what might be in the pipeline...
I certainly hope not. But it increasingly looks as if this is the way things are going. War with a country like China may be in our future, as odd as that statement may seem today. Who would have thought in 1929 that the US would be at war with Japan and Italy only a few years down the road? Or even Germany, for that matter?