On Friday, a British newspaper, The Telegraph, ran an article titled “U.S. Cities May Have to Be Bulldozed to Survive.” þþThis idea is hardly new. Youngstown, Ohio, and its mayor, Jay Williams, have long aimed at transforming that declining Rust Belt polis into “a sustainable mid-sized city.” Detroit’s last mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was elected in 2002 on a promise to raze 5,000 houses. The Telegraph article’s novelty was the suggestion that the Obama administration is interested in supporting bulldozing, which prompted the Drudge Report headline: “Obama Era: Bulldoze Shrinking Cities?” þþDespite the headlines, the Telegraph article does not actually describe a massive new government policy aimed at helping cities shrink to greatness. The text described the pro-shrinkage ideas of the treasurer of Genesee County, Mich., who “outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the campaign,” and has been “approached by the U.S. government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.” Thousands of people have outlined their strategies to the president over the last 48 months, and if a junior staff member at the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis asks you for a few ideas about branch banking, then you too can truthfully say that you have been “approached” by the American government. þþBut while there is no evidence that the Obama administration is committed to razing homes, it probably should be. þþFor too long, America’s declining cities have tried to find magic bullets that would bring them back to their former glory. Eighteen months ago, I suggested that Buffalo wasn’t about to come back any time soon. I argued that would be far wiser to accept the reality of decline and focus on investing in human capital that can move out, not fixed physical capital. þþAfter all, the job of government is to enrich and empower the lives of its citizens, not to chase the chimera of population growth targets. Just once, I want to hear a Rust Belt mayor say with pride “my city lost 200,000 people during my term, but we’ve given them the education they need to find a better life elsewhere.” þþUrban decline is a reality in much of older, colder America. þþIn 1900, every one of the 20 largest American cities was on a major waterway. All but two (San Francisco and New Orleans) were in the northeast quadrant of the country that is framed by the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. These cities grew because rivers and lakes made it possible to bring the great wealth of the American hinterland to the markets of the east, and then because manufacturing concentrated around transport hubs. Over the 20th century, a more than 90 percent decline in the cost of moving goods over space made these advantages obsolete, and Americans moved to newer Sun Belt cities built around the automobile. þþThe move to sun and sprawl meant that 8 of the 10 largest cities in the United States in 1950 have lost at least 20 percent of their population since that date. In some cities, like Detroit, Cleveland and St. Louis, population has declined by more than 50 percent. þþUrban public policy over the past 60 years focused on helping those places come back, but policies like urban renewal and the model cities program did little for the people living in declining areas. þþAs America contemplates a new “train” agenda, the country should recall that Detroit’s People Mover reigns supreme as the silliest of all pieces of urban infrastructure. The farce of that rail-to-nowhere is tragic because the money spent building and maintaining the monorail could have been spent on Detroit’s children. Mayors of cities-in-decline have long been fond of subsidizing shiny downtown office buildings, and then declaring that the new towers mean that their city is back. Cleveland has been fond of calling itself the “Comeback City,” but its population has continued to decline, and 29.7 percent of its citizens live in poverty. þþThe hallmark of declining places is an abundance of infrastructure relative to people. It is therefore particularly foolish to try to save declining places by building new infrastructure or homes. Buffalo would have done better to invest in its children than in light rail. þþRazing abandoned buildings is the extreme acknowledgment that declining cities aren’t about to achieve former population levels. Parks are better than abandoned buildings, and Mayor Williams is right to want to right-size his city. So while the Obama administration hasn’t yet embraced the bulldozer, I’m hoping that they will embrace urban policies that put people ahead of place. þ
Source: NY Times
