Did anyone else hear the segment on NPR about Flint, Michigan and the potential bulldozing of much of the city in response to the fact that so much of it is abandoned? Specifically, one city official commented on a desire to turn abandoned city blocks into public green space. This particular logic also said that by doing so, it would reduce the need for public services in those areas.
I was wondering what comments people might have about the issue, or simpy-what is an appropriate response on urban and architectural scales to shrinking or as the segment suggested "dying" cities...
The urban planner they interviewed said they didn't know what to do...
Bulldozing abandoned areas just speeds up what nature is doing more slowly. There really doesn't seem to be any compelling argument against doing this.
I heard an architect raise a very good question recently: why should (insert city name here) exist at this location?
I don't think Flint has any reason to exist in that location any longer.
I also don't think "public green space" has any value unless it's 1. being used for something productive, like farming, or 2. in the middle of a densely built, heavily populated urban environment.
(To address one possible criticism of my comment: Public lands like Yosemite aren't simply public green space; they are important because of their location, which is not the case with Flint.)
Tradition isn't reason enough for a place to exist. When something is as rotten as Flint, tradition is a prison. Wipe it away, IMO.
I agree that Flint doesn't have a reason to exist today but sooner or later people are going to start returning to the great lakes states. They have water. Southwestern and many southern states don't.
I agree with 4 arch...Michigan as a whole may be going through tough times right now but I think in the long run places like Flint, Detroit, etc. have more of a future than dry and over populated areas like Las Vegas or Phoenix and even S. California.
After hurricane Katrina I was an advocate of moving environmental refugees to Detroit. There is existing infastructure there for an additional 1 million + people. Some day someone is going to wish that infastructure was still there.
Within a generation I would bet we'll be having similar conversations about large swaths of sun belt cities and asking why is this city here.
But aqua, there is only infrastructure to house people in Flint and Detroit - not to employ them. Unless the relocation plan also includes a gigantic shift in business functions and attitude that would bring well-paying manufacturing (or other - farming? research?) jobs back again.
And 4arch, the American mindset has tended to be one of solving the apparent problem not the actual problem, which is why I see a far greater chance of enormous canals and pipes taking water TO the desert southwest than I do of people moving themselves out of the Southwest to another place.
People who live in the Southwest for a few years get into a mindset that winter = evil. (I definitely used to be one of them!) They don't want to change, but instead want the world to change to accommodate their comfort.
LB - I see your argument and given the past 100+ years of history you are correct. That said, I don't ever see a future where there is a pipeline of Great Lakes water heading into Arizona. Perhaps I've lost faith that this country is still capable of large civil engineering feats, but mostly I think the SW in particular is fast approaching a level of unsustainability that will come long before any engineering project can be completed.
As for employment, unfortunately in this day and age businesses seem more mobile than families are and I'm sure they'll move to where they can succeed. If there is opportunity in the rust belt they'll move there.
Don't get me wrong, Flint is a sh*t hole and most of Detroit is the same, but one drive around Phoenix or Vegas and I scratch my head and wonder "how is this sustainable"?
"People who live in the Southwest for a few years get into a mindset that winter = evil. (I definitely used to be one of them!) They don't want to change, but instead want the world to change to accommodate their comfort."
I think I know what you're saying, LB, but this seems a little tricky to me. I'd say we're all expecting that of the world, aren't we? I think it's pretty hard to justify an argument based on a moral imperative compelling those folks to move.
Sure, some areas of the country require more of the taxpayers to maintain inhabitability for a relative and seemingly demanding few -- deserts, flood plains, hurricane zones, earthquakes, etc. etc. etc. ....
And, there are also folks living off the grid, and seemingly using almost no resources or taxpayer dependency.
I'm curious what the criteria might be to determine which lifestyle is etchically accpetable? Indeed, who must move into a more acceptable lifestyle...
These arguments always seem similar to vehicle efficiency debates... the contrived importance of the difference between a person getting 20mpg versus a person that gets 30mpg. As if Ms. 20mpg just doesn't care, but Ms. 30mpg does, and is justified in asking Ms. 20mpg to please find more acceptable transportation.
exactly..that is why it's important for the united states to adopt a formal class system. it would be much easier to figure out whose lives (or "lifestyles" if you prefer) should be privileged and whose are worthless if we classified everybody from the beginning.
one of my graduate studios did a project in flint - some of the residents there are passionate about reinvigorating the downtown, which has been happening on a level and makes a lot of sense due to the UM-Flint campus located there, among other things (the best idea we had was for them to try to reinvent themselves as a college town with umich and kettering). but the residents of flint have been practically begging the city to tear those abandon homes down for some time. they are dangerous, and attract gangs, homeless people, satan worshipers, and meth labs. kids like to play in them. it's not cool. i think replacing them with green space makes sense. flint is a lot smaller than detroit, and in some ways less dysfunctional. they have an opportunity, like youngstown ohio, to attempt to sort of "shrink with grace" and do so in a way that will improve the quality of life there. this is complicated though and there are a whole, whole lot of other issues that come into play in flint.
honestly, given what i said above, i don't see flint ever "coming back" in the sense of recapturing most of it's population. what aquapura has said about the difference between the great lakes and the deserts and the long term affect on quality of life might be true for a place like detroit, which has international flights to several continents, amazing museums, lots of culture, and people with a whole lot of money. but the same doesn't apply for places like flint. flint is way off the beaten path. they need to focus on their colleges and universities, but even those are automotive-technology focused. flint doesn't have a lot of culture or natural beauty. it is in the flattest, most tree-less part of michigan. the wealthiest people left flint when buick city closed. it has a radical union reputation that frightens away business owners. it will never catch up to ann arbor or grand rapids, as far as quality of life in other michigan towns goes. i don't see people from arizona moving to flint anytime soon. flint needs to focus on slowing down their population loss in a way that improves the quality of life for the die-hards who will remain, and use the universities as a way to attract a base of intellectuals, which leads to another point, they also need better leadership. i interviewed the mayor (not the current one) and was not hugely impressed, but then they don't have a great base of hugely impressive people to pull from.
I'm curious what the criteria might be to determine which lifestyle is etchically accpetable?
Well, I'd think most places where annual rainfall < annual water consumption could be considered unacceptable. Not that people should be forced to move, but I think there's a pretty strong argument to be made for not artificially delivering water to such places.
well hang on a second before i get too carried away, flint does have it's cultural campus, which is actually really cool. it also has halo burger, the best greasy food in the world.
Mr. Malcontent (love your name, BTW). I'm not saying that anyone should be compelled to move as a moral imperative. I don't find anything especially moral about Midwestern winters, but I HAVE found that I can enjoy them. (What I miss mainly about Arizona is the sense of ginormous space that distant overlapping mountain ranges gives, but I don't think we should build mountains in the Midwest to mimic that!)
Now if someone proposes a pipeline to the desert that causes water to be sufficient but also! exorbitantly expensive enough to prevent Arizonans from filling their swimming pools or watering their golf courses, that's different. Maybe puddles is right!
bossman, you know i respect your opinion and experience on this but I have to pose the question again" what is that greenspace going to be used for, or is it just (as Sweet Juniper says) "urban prairie"? (In which case, some grazing animals would be fun.)
"Now if someone proposes a pipeline to the desert that causes water to be sufficient but also! exorbitantly expensive enough to prevent Arizonans from filling their swimming pools or watering their golf courses, that's different. Maybe puddles is right!"
Yeah, OK, gotcha, LB (Water Cop)... just so you're not moralizing... ;-)
well, maybe the "green space" will be just that for now - nothing, just a mowed lawn or perhaps native prairie which doesn't need maintenance - but it's much more appealing than living next to a meth lab. the cheapest, easiest thing for the city to do is just knock them down - they can't possibly police all those empty homes.
also, i don't think the great lakes would be able to sustain themselves while piping water elsewhere. they lost several feet of depth just due to over dredging in the detroit river. i can't imagine what a massive canal or pipeline actively taking that much water away would do. just do a search on "great lakes drain hole."
shrinking a city's boundaries to decrease its infrastructural maintenance obligations only makes sense. many depopulating midwestern cities need to do this.
bulldozing vacant buildings is a whole other issue. cities need to make comprehensive preservation and demolition plans. too often planners, officials and residents make decisions based on mere feelings or perceptions when more holistic planning would serve the city better. the genesee county land bank is actually at the forefront in the country in this type of planning, and i have confidence that they are acting in the best interests of the city. i wish detroit would in fact learn from flint's example.
Just so I'm clear: I strongly oppose piping water from the Great Lakes to the Southwest. I think Phoenix and Vegas are already far beyond their sustainable size, if, that is, we keep living like we're living.
And I'm also just curious about what would happen to cities like Flint and Detroit and other Midwestern smallish cities if their unused infrastructure was removed.
More on urban prairie, and a stunning aerial photograph, here.
First, there's no place in Michigan that has the capital to go through the legal emminent domain proceedings, and there are a lot of services that need to be reinstated prior to anyone entertaining thoughts of Robert Moses of the forest in flint.
That said, these homes should not be bulldozed, but rather dismantled where they are used for criminal behaviour and when the owners cannot secure their building or be found. Take all the salvageable material, sort it and save it in a securable warehouse building(s). This material is seized to cover the cost of labor, which should not be significantly higher than the cost to bulldoze (it's not here in Chicago). Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!
So you know there are several international agreements which keep the Great Lakes from being tapped. The U.S. may think this water pipeline is a dandy idea (technically people in Arizona and Nevada think it's a dandy idea) but Canada would never ever allow it. The Colorado river used to flow all the way to the gulf of California, until all the Angelinos got ahold of it - and everyone here has seen "Chinatown".
California would use a whole lot less water if it wasn't growing vegetables to feed the midwest and Atlantic states. Soy and feed corn don't go into your belly. I am willing to sign a trade pact right now where California agrees to import nothing from Michigan if Michigan agrees to do the same from California. What would Californians give up? Novelty taxidermy? The Dodge Caliber? Subpar College Football? The never to be released Anthrax vaccine? The biggest hit would be emotional, and occurs when Californians realize they no longer get to compare unemployment figures with Michigan. I say this having gone to both high school and college in that particular mitten shaped state.
Point is that the entire United States is part of a related network, and there is no region of the country which is actually individually sustainable and unreliant upon other regions. Come the poxyclypse, even temperate New York/New Jersey don't turn into a pastoral agrarian communities - they turn into a Cormac McCarthy novel. End off topic rant.
Cherries? Blueberries? Strawberries? Sweet corn? Apples? Whitefish? What do you have against Michigan agriculture & fishing?
California uses a whole lot of water (and oil) growing crops which otherwise couldn't grow there. And pre-1850 EVERYPLACE was self-sustainable. Sure, a lot less people, but perhaps running out of water was a clue as to the maximum population of a region, not an incentive to steal water from elsewhere.
The current industrial farming techniques are neither natural nor sustainable, wherever they are, all you are doing is exporting resources from a sustainable region (at a loss) to one which isn't.
All in all, I'm sure Mexico would still rather have it's water.
Most of Africa is farming sustainably, and organically, and almost half of African children are hungry or starving. I don't think that this is simply and issue of "industrial" agriculture versus whatever the alternative is - the terms are misleading and not useful, and the result isn't sustainable at all once you factor in the human cost.
Point is, the world's population will not be fed by people growing tomatoes in their backyards or boulevard strips (it is a nice pastime for those of us that can afford it), and ending irrigation isn't going to make the world any better. Most of the world's population lives in areas that do not receive sufficient rainful to sustain agriculture on their own. Shouldn't all resources (not just water) be used responsibly? Isn't it a good idea to share resources to better the global community, rather than hoard them in survivalist enclaves?
Anyhow, back to the topic at hand. Most farms in Michigan that can't produce high value fruits (like most of the State) are teetering on bankruptcy and surviving only because of subsidies - we don't need any more of them. And large scale institutional investment for Flint, Detroit and Lansing seems out of the question due to lack of capital - some Michigan counties are returning roads to gravel because they can't afford to maintain them. Flint has it right - concentrate on viable communities of increased density and let the rest of the unused city blocks return to unproductive wood lots and wetlands where at least they could serve as habitat.
houseofmud, you're right in many ways, but that's the point: it's not sustainable for everyone to eat strawberries in December if those strawberries have to be grown in a place that doesn't have enough water to do it. Shipping the berries from California - or South America! - to Detroit makes little sense in the form in which we do it today.
Did Michiganders die of scurvy every winter before they started importing CA strawberries? Well maybe some did, but they also had this thing called "canning".
how did we go from flint to this pipeline discussion anyway? the "pipeline" will just never happen. it's a silly idea, it's like wishing for flying cars. defies the laws of common sense. people in AZ need to get rid of their pools first anyway.
i was just going to say LB: canning. i've been thinking about it a lot lately. i think i might try to can my own goods this fall. maybe start with some michigan peaches or pears. i need to drive up the blue star highway.
don't all michigan/detroit threads eventually devolve into one of three topics: 1.) how shitty american cars are 2.) how to divert the great lakes to the sw (and associated references to the michigan militia defending the great lakes to the death) 3.) urban farming. we pretty much covered all the bases in this thread.
It's an extension of that where every California conversation is about water, smog/traffic, or licensing regulation. Maybe its good that our respective states have transformed themselves into myths - I'm still waiting for the archinect Delaware thread.
Delaware? The whole state is a corporate headquarters, and their architecture reflects that perfectly.
To go back to mh00's original question: I think obliterating Flint, or let's say, relocating the population while obliterating the infrastructure - would be an interesting experiment in bold, large-scale urban change. (Granted, the builders of the Projects felt that way too, with a lousy result.)
Certainly sometime in history we can see an example of a city being abandoned? For example, a city so devastated by a plague that the remaining people left and the Emproer or whoever had the buildings knocked down and the ground salted? What can we learn from that?
All I can think of is cities that were abandoned and neglected, none that were deliberately razed. There were of course lots of cities from antiquity that went on to be picked away piece by piece, acting as building supply yards - where the St. Peter's baldacchino was made from bronze salvaged from the Pantheon, maybe one day we'll marvel at the power infrastructure built from Flint's stolen copper wire?
Well, initially, I just asked if anyone had heard the segment on NPR about city officials questioning what to do about Flint in general. I didn't have a specific idea in mind about what might be posted (obviously), but I do think the issue is incredibly interesting as it relates to our profession. Is it really only a planning/policy issue or a Design issue when it comes to Flint? Can they be interrelated or indepdendent strategies? Will new Architecture emerge as a response to the city's issues...what is appropriate?
for all of the potential cities like flint and detroit have to reinvent themselves, the issues that they face are largely urban planning and design issues that revolve around the idea of shrinking (recycling, reuse, demolition, etc.). there is little to no new construction going on within these cities. it's all about money, and when money is flowing out of these regions, it makes it very difficult to catalyze change through architecture. while there is perhaps a budding grassroots/diy architecture scene in se michigan, i can't see it sustaining itself. michigan is a much better state for planning than it is architecture.
It's a lot of things. More than anything, I think they just need better leadership. Better leadership in the gov't, better leadership in the unions (which act as a quasi community association in Flint - some of the UAW members don't even work in the auto industry), better leadership in the design community. It could be better if only someone would come along with a vision. Unfortunately most of the people who could have such a vision (like ourselves, perhaps) find it more interesting to discuss from afar than to actually go and partake. Of course what jfidler posted with the Genesse land grant info was an example of success in my mind. There is a group of developers who have more or less bought up all of downtown Flint, and who want to go forward with something. I would say most of our research (including my own) we did for them pointed more back to the questions than the answers, as we were all trying to educate ourselves. Flint in particular has made some of the right moves in the downtown, helping to expand the umich campus, upgrading facades and taking the bars off all the windows, knocking down a dangerous, hideous mid-rise building and re-doing the street. A few die-hards have come along and built some cool loft apartments in some of the buildings. Flint is a lot smaller than Detroit, and in my mind, good design could go a lot farther there in terms of bringing the city back from the brink.
jfidler brings up a good point, which is that it would be really difficult for such a design community to sustain itself, and i would say that the reasons are more cultural than anything else. i can't help but get the impression that a young, energetic designer in this environment isn't going against the grain, he is going against a tidal wave. it would be hard to be the only designer who is interested in a city, in music, in culture, in food, whatever. flint is a shot and a beer kind of town; most young creative types would probably get burned out from the gestalt over time. there are a lot of people passionate about the city, still i just am not sure there would be enough interest for it to be self-sustaining.
Very thoughtful article looking at the problems of shrinking cities here. I found it via The Urbanophile.
What Kaid Benfield is saying is something that to me seems so obvious as to not need to be stated: before we knock down the cities, we need to stop the sprawl into the country! Like I said upthread, we tend in this country to solve the wrong problem. Benfield makes the excellent point that the problem isn't only with the city, it's with the fringe.
But again, that just seems obvious to me. We need to stop building new buildings, period (except possibly for specialized facilities like hospitals, labs, and transit centers). We could stop right now and still have, in my very unscientific opinion, more than enough places to live/shop/play by renovating existing structures.
The thing is, I'm not sure wiping the slate clean isn't the more expedient way to bring vitality back to certain urban areas. If we sit on bad housing stock waiting for people to come back to the city, it becomes that much harder to fit people back in once they're ready to abandon sprawlsville.
A lot of the houses we're talking about here are beyond the point of being rehabbed economically. Some were very poorly built in the first place and are at the end of their useful life. Some are just not able to accommodate today's standard of living - especially if we're trying to attract anyone other than singles and empty nesters to the city. We can be nostalgic all we want about how people used to raise 10 kids in a 400 square foot house, but that's just not the reality we're living in right now.
Developers are a lot more willing to buy empty lots than they are to buy blocks of derelict houses - especially if those houses come with any sort of preservation edict. It's a lot easier selling new residents on a whole new neighborhood rising from the ashes than it is convincing them to be pioneers in a neighborhood with unknown odds of bouncing back.
Flint
Did anyone else hear the segment on NPR about Flint, Michigan and the potential bulldozing of much of the city in response to the fact that so much of it is abandoned? Specifically, one city official commented on a desire to turn abandoned city blocks into public green space. This particular logic also said that by doing so, it would reduce the need for public services in those areas.
I was wondering what comments people might have about the issue, or simpy-what is an appropriate response on urban and architectural scales to shrinking or as the segment suggested "dying" cities...
The urban planner they interviewed said they didn't know what to do...
Bulldozing abandoned areas just speeds up what nature is doing more slowly. There really doesn't seem to be any compelling argument against doing this.
The NYTimes article...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business/22flint.html
The Dayton Family - Flint Town...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_7qlkOb1aY
...i suppose that's good enough of a reason for me
mc breed...r.i.p
flint is like a mini detroit
pontiac, mi. is bringing in some of the movie studio projects/company
I heard an architect raise a very good question recently: why should (insert city name here) exist at this location?
I don't think Flint has any reason to exist in that location any longer.
I also don't think "public green space" has any value unless it's 1. being used for something productive, like farming, or 2. in the middle of a densely built, heavily populated urban environment.
(To address one possible criticism of my comment: Public lands like Yosemite aren't simply public green space; they are important because of their location, which is not the case with Flint.)
Tradition isn't reason enough for a place to exist. When something is as rotten as Flint, tradition is a prison. Wipe it away, IMO.
lb,
I agree that Flint doesn't have a reason to exist today but sooner or later people are going to start returning to the great lakes states. They have water. Southwestern and many southern states don't.
I agree with 4 arch...Michigan as a whole may be going through tough times right now but I think in the long run places like Flint, Detroit, etc. have more of a future than dry and over populated areas like Las Vegas or Phoenix and even S. California.
After hurricane Katrina I was an advocate of moving environmental refugees to Detroit. There is existing infastructure there for an additional 1 million + people. Some day someone is going to wish that infastructure was still there.
Within a generation I would bet we'll be having similar conversations about large swaths of sun belt cities and asking why is this city here.
But aqua, there is only infrastructure to house people in Flint and Detroit - not to employ them. Unless the relocation plan also includes a gigantic shift in business functions and attitude that would bring well-paying manufacturing (or other - farming? research?) jobs back again.
And 4arch, the American mindset has tended to be one of solving the apparent problem not the actual problem, which is why I see a far greater chance of enormous canals and pipes taking water TO the desert southwest than I do of people moving themselves out of the Southwest to another place.
People who live in the Southwest for a few years get into a mindset that winter = evil. (I definitely used to be one of them!) They don't want to change, but instead want the world to change to accommodate their comfort.
LB - I see your argument and given the past 100+ years of history you are correct. That said, I don't ever see a future where there is a pipeline of Great Lakes water heading into Arizona. Perhaps I've lost faith that this country is still capable of large civil engineering feats, but mostly I think the SW in particular is fast approaching a level of unsustainability that will come long before any engineering project can be completed.
As for employment, unfortunately in this day and age businesses seem more mobile than families are and I'm sure they'll move to where they can succeed. If there is opportunity in the rust belt they'll move there.
Don't get me wrong, Flint is a sh*t hole and most of Detroit is the same, but one drive around Phoenix or Vegas and I scratch my head and wonder "how is this sustainable"?
"People who live in the Southwest for a few years get into a mindset that winter = evil. (I definitely used to be one of them!) They don't want to change, but instead want the world to change to accommodate their comfort."
I think I know what you're saying, LB, but this seems a little tricky to me. I'd say we're all expecting that of the world, aren't we? I think it's pretty hard to justify an argument based on a moral imperative compelling those folks to move.
Sure, some areas of the country require more of the taxpayers to maintain inhabitability for a relative and seemingly demanding few -- deserts, flood plains, hurricane zones, earthquakes, etc. etc. etc. ....
And, there are also folks living off the grid, and seemingly using almost no resources or taxpayer dependency.
I'm curious what the criteria might be to determine which lifestyle is etchically accpetable? Indeed, who must move into a more acceptable lifestyle...
These arguments always seem similar to vehicle efficiency debates... the contrived importance of the difference between a person getting 20mpg versus a person that gets 30mpg. As if Ms. 20mpg just doesn't care, but Ms. 30mpg does, and is justified in asking Ms. 20mpg to please find more acceptable transportation.
exactly..that is why it's important for the united states to adopt a formal class system. it would be much easier to figure out whose lives (or "lifestyles" if you prefer) should be privileged and whose are worthless if we classified everybody from the beginning.
flint needs a museum dedicated to the rock of Grand Funk!
one of my graduate studios did a project in flint - some of the residents there are passionate about reinvigorating the downtown, which has been happening on a level and makes a lot of sense due to the UM-Flint campus located there, among other things (the best idea we had was for them to try to reinvent themselves as a college town with umich and kettering). but the residents of flint have been practically begging the city to tear those abandon homes down for some time. they are dangerous, and attract gangs, homeless people, satan worshipers, and meth labs. kids like to play in them. it's not cool. i think replacing them with green space makes sense. flint is a lot smaller than detroit, and in some ways less dysfunctional. they have an opportunity, like youngstown ohio, to attempt to sort of "shrink with grace" and do so in a way that will improve the quality of life there. this is complicated though and there are a whole, whole lot of other issues that come into play in flint.
honestly, given what i said above, i don't see flint ever "coming back" in the sense of recapturing most of it's population. what aquapura has said about the difference between the great lakes and the deserts and the long term affect on quality of life might be true for a place like detroit, which has international flights to several continents, amazing museums, lots of culture, and people with a whole lot of money. but the same doesn't apply for places like flint. flint is way off the beaten path. they need to focus on their colleges and universities, but even those are automotive-technology focused. flint doesn't have a lot of culture or natural beauty. it is in the flattest, most tree-less part of michigan. the wealthiest people left flint when buick city closed. it has a radical union reputation that frightens away business owners. it will never catch up to ann arbor or grand rapids, as far as quality of life in other michigan towns goes. i don't see people from arizona moving to flint anytime soon. flint needs to focus on slowing down their population loss in a way that improves the quality of life for the die-hards who will remain, and use the universities as a way to attract a base of intellectuals, which leads to another point, they also need better leadership. i interviewed the mayor (not the current one) and was not hugely impressed, but then they don't have a great base of hugely impressive people to pull from.
Well, I'd think most places where annual rainfall < annual water consumption could be considered unacceptable. Not that people should be forced to move, but I think there's a pretty strong argument to be made for not artificially delivering water to such places.
well hang on a second before i get too carried away, flint does have it's cultural campus, which is actually really cool. it also has halo burger, the best greasy food in the world.
Mr. Malcontent (love your name, BTW). I'm not saying that anyone should be compelled to move as a moral imperative. I don't find anything especially moral about Midwestern winters, but I HAVE found that I can enjoy them. (What I miss mainly about Arizona is the sense of ginormous space that distant overlapping mountain ranges gives, but I don't think we should build mountains in the Midwest to mimic that!)
Now if someone proposes a pipeline to the desert that causes water to be sufficient but also! exorbitantly expensive enough to prevent Arizonans from filling their swimming pools or watering their golf courses, that's different. Maybe puddles is right!
bossman, you know i respect your opinion and experience on this but I have to pose the question again" what is that greenspace going to be used for, or is it just (as Sweet Juniper says) "urban prairie"? (In which case, some grazing animals would be fun.)
It's a can of worms, 4arch -- my question is more rhetorical, because the "answer" would be impossibly complex.
"Now if someone proposes a pipeline to the desert that causes water to be sufficient but also! exorbitantly expensive enough to prevent Arizonans from filling their swimming pools or watering their golf courses, that's different. Maybe puddles is right!"
Yeah, OK, gotcha, LB (Water Cop)... just so you're not moralizing... ;-)
well, maybe the "green space" will be just that for now - nothing, just a mowed lawn or perhaps native prairie which doesn't need maintenance - but it's much more appealing than living next to a meth lab. the cheapest, easiest thing for the city to do is just knock them down - they can't possibly police all those empty homes.
also, i don't think the great lakes would be able to sustain themselves while piping water elsewhere. they lost several feet of depth just due to over dredging in the detroit river. i can't imagine what a massive canal or pipeline actively taking that much water away would do. just do a search on "great lakes drain hole."
http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/21842
shrinking a city's boundaries to decrease its infrastructural maintenance obligations only makes sense. many depopulating midwestern cities need to do this.
bulldozing vacant buildings is a whole other issue. cities need to make comprehensive preservation and demolition plans. too often planners, officials and residents make decisions based on mere feelings or perceptions when more holistic planning would serve the city better. the genesee county land bank is actually at the forefront in the country in this type of planning, and i have confidence that they are acting in the best interests of the city. i wish detroit would in fact learn from flint's example.
Just so I'm clear: I strongly oppose piping water from the Great Lakes to the Southwest. I think Phoenix and Vegas are already far beyond their sustainable size, if, that is, we keep living like we're living.
And I'm also just curious about what would happen to cities like Flint and Detroit and other Midwestern smallish cities if their unused infrastructure was removed.
More on urban prairie, and a stunning aerial photograph, here.
First, there's no place in Michigan that has the capital to go through the legal emminent domain proceedings, and there are a lot of services that need to be reinstated prior to anyone entertaining thoughts of Robert Moses of the forest in flint.
That said, these homes should not be bulldozed, but rather dismantled where they are used for criminal behaviour and when the owners cannot secure their building or be found. Take all the salvageable material, sort it and save it in a securable warehouse building(s). This material is seized to cover the cost of labor, which should not be significantly higher than the cost to bulldoze (it's not here in Chicago). Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!
So you know there are several international agreements which keep the Great Lakes from being tapped. The U.S. may think this water pipeline is a dandy idea (technically people in Arizona and Nevada think it's a dandy idea) but Canada would never ever allow it. The Colorado river used to flow all the way to the gulf of California, until all the Angelinos got ahold of it - and everyone here has seen "Chinatown".
thanks for the link mr. fidler, i wasn't even aware of that. shows how much i know.
Off topic rant:
California would use a whole lot less water if it wasn't growing vegetables to feed the midwest and Atlantic states. Soy and feed corn don't go into your belly. I am willing to sign a trade pact right now where California agrees to import nothing from Michigan if Michigan agrees to do the same from California. What would Californians give up? Novelty taxidermy? The Dodge Caliber? Subpar College Football? The never to be released Anthrax vaccine? The biggest hit would be emotional, and occurs when Californians realize they no longer get to compare unemployment figures with Michigan. I say this having gone to both high school and college in that particular mitten shaped state.
Point is that the entire United States is part of a related network, and there is no region of the country which is actually individually sustainable and unreliant upon other regions. Come the poxyclypse, even temperate New York/New Jersey don't turn into a pastoral agrarian communities - they turn into a Cormac McCarthy novel. End off topic rant.
Cherries? Blueberries? Strawberries? Sweet corn? Apples? Whitefish? What do you have against Michigan agriculture & fishing?
California uses a whole lot of water (and oil) growing crops which otherwise couldn't grow there. And pre-1850 EVERYPLACE was self-sustainable. Sure, a lot less people, but perhaps running out of water was a clue as to the maximum population of a region, not an incentive to steal water from elsewhere.
The current industrial farming techniques are neither natural nor sustainable, wherever they are, all you are doing is exporting resources from a sustainable region (at a loss) to one which isn't.
All in all, I'm sure Mexico would still rather have it's water.
Most of Africa is farming sustainably, and organically, and almost half of African children are hungry or starving. I don't think that this is simply and issue of "industrial" agriculture versus whatever the alternative is - the terms are misleading and not useful, and the result isn't sustainable at all once you factor in the human cost.
Point is, the world's population will not be fed by people growing tomatoes in their backyards or boulevard strips (it is a nice pastime for those of us that can afford it), and ending irrigation isn't going to make the world any better. Most of the world's population lives in areas that do not receive sufficient rainful to sustain agriculture on their own. Shouldn't all resources (not just water) be used responsibly? Isn't it a good idea to share resources to better the global community, rather than hoard them in survivalist enclaves?
Anyhow, back to the topic at hand. Most farms in Michigan that can't produce high value fruits (like most of the State) are teetering on bankruptcy and surviving only because of subsidies - we don't need any more of them. And large scale institutional investment for Flint, Detroit and Lansing seems out of the question due to lack of capital - some Michigan counties are returning roads to gravel because they can't afford to maintain them. Flint has it right - concentrate on viable communities of increased density and let the rest of the unused city blocks return to unproductive wood lots and wetlands where at least they could serve as habitat.
oh yeah, cause we all know how freakin' awesome the pac 10 is. sheesh.
houseofmud, you're right in many ways, but that's the point: it's not sustainable for everyone to eat strawberries in December if those strawberries have to be grown in a place that doesn't have enough water to do it. Shipping the berries from California - or South America! - to Detroit makes little sense in the form in which we do it today.
Did Michiganders die of scurvy every winter before they started importing CA strawberries? Well maybe some did, but they also had this thing called "canning".
Africa is another story entirely.
how did we go from flint to this pipeline discussion anyway? the "pipeline" will just never happen. it's a silly idea, it's like wishing for flying cars. defies the laws of common sense. people in AZ need to get rid of their pools first anyway.
(the little blue dots are pools that evaporate 10' of water every year)
i was just going to say LB: canning. i've been thinking about it a lot lately. i think i might try to can my own goods this fall. maybe start with some michigan peaches or pears. i need to drive up the blue star highway.
don't all michigan/detroit threads eventually devolve into one of three topics: 1.) how shitty american cars are 2.) how to divert the great lakes to the sw (and associated references to the michigan militia defending the great lakes to the death) 3.) urban farming. we pretty much covered all the bases in this thread.
you know what? you are right. it just goes to show what people know about michigan.
It's an extension of that where every California conversation is about water, smog/traffic, or licensing regulation. Maybe its good that our respective states have transformed themselves into myths - I'm still waiting for the archinect Delaware thread.
Delaware? The whole state is a corporate headquarters, and their architecture reflects that perfectly.
To go back to mh00's original question: I think obliterating Flint, or let's say, relocating the population while obliterating the infrastructure - would be an interesting experiment in bold, large-scale urban change. (Granted, the builders of the Projects felt that way too, with a lousy result.)
Certainly sometime in history we can see an example of a city being abandoned? For example, a city so devastated by a plague that the remaining people left and the Emproer or whoever had the buildings knocked down and the ground salted? What can we learn from that?
Isn't Gary, IN a modern day example of such? The TV show Life After People featured it in one episode.
But people still live there, and it hasn't been wiped off the ground.
Garys decline is actually worse than flints if we go by population loss...
garys current pop stands at about 95-100k... from a high around 180k in the 60's-70's... its lost nearly 50% of its population...
flint on the other hand is at about 115, down from a high of 190k in the 60's...
this all according to wikipedia of course...
that is all
All I can think of is cities that were abandoned and neglected, none that were deliberately razed. There were of course lots of cities from antiquity that went on to be picked away piece by piece, acting as building supply yards - where the St. Peter's baldacchino was made from bronze salvaged from the Pantheon, maybe one day we'll marvel at the power infrastructure built from Flint's stolen copper wire?
Well, initially, I just asked if anyone had heard the segment on NPR about city officials questioning what to do about Flint in general. I didn't have a specific idea in mind about what might be posted (obviously), but I do think the issue is incredibly interesting as it relates to our profession. Is it really only a planning/policy issue or a Design issue when it comes to Flint? Can they be interrelated or indepdendent strategies? Will new Architecture emerge as a response to the city's issues...what is appropriate?
for all of the potential cities like flint and detroit have to reinvent themselves, the issues that they face are largely urban planning and design issues that revolve around the idea of shrinking (recycling, reuse, demolition, etc.). there is little to no new construction going on within these cities. it's all about money, and when money is flowing out of these regions, it makes it very difficult to catalyze change through architecture. while there is perhaps a budding grassroots/diy architecture scene in se michigan, i can't see it sustaining itself. michigan is a much better state for planning than it is architecture.
It's a lot of things. More than anything, I think they just need better leadership. Better leadership in the gov't, better leadership in the unions (which act as a quasi community association in Flint - some of the UAW members don't even work in the auto industry), better leadership in the design community. It could be better if only someone would come along with a vision. Unfortunately most of the people who could have such a vision (like ourselves, perhaps) find it more interesting to discuss from afar than to actually go and partake. Of course what jfidler posted with the Genesse land grant info was an example of success in my mind. There is a group of developers who have more or less bought up all of downtown Flint, and who want to go forward with something. I would say most of our research (including my own) we did for them pointed more back to the questions than the answers, as we were all trying to educate ourselves. Flint in particular has made some of the right moves in the downtown, helping to expand the umich campus, upgrading facades and taking the bars off all the windows, knocking down a dangerous, hideous mid-rise building and re-doing the street. A few die-hards have come along and built some cool loft apartments in some of the buildings. Flint is a lot smaller than Detroit, and in my mind, good design could go a lot farther there in terms of bringing the city back from the brink.
jfidler brings up a good point, which is that it would be really difficult for such a design community to sustain itself, and i would say that the reasons are more cultural than anything else. i can't help but get the impression that a young, energetic designer in this environment isn't going against the grain, he is going against a tidal wave. it would be hard to be the only designer who is interested in a city, in music, in culture, in food, whatever. flint is a shot and a beer kind of town; most young creative types would probably get burned out from the gestalt over time. there are a lot of people passionate about the city, still i just am not sure there would be enough interest for it to be self-sustaining.
for example, this guy is never moving to flint
that guy would get beat up pretty fast if he ever moved to flint.
Ha! Very good, fidler.
Very thoughtful article looking at the problems of shrinking cities here. I found it via The Urbanophile.
What Kaid Benfield is saying is something that to me seems so obvious as to not need to be stated: before we knock down the cities, we need to stop the sprawl into the country! Like I said upthread, we tend in this country to solve the wrong problem. Benfield makes the excellent point that the problem isn't only with the city, it's with the fringe.
But again, that just seems obvious to me. We need to stop building new buildings, period (except possibly for specialized facilities like hospitals, labs, and transit centers). We could stop right now and still have, in my very unscientific opinion, more than enough places to live/shop/play by renovating existing structures.
The thing is, I'm not sure wiping the slate clean isn't the more expedient way to bring vitality back to certain urban areas. If we sit on bad housing stock waiting for people to come back to the city, it becomes that much harder to fit people back in once they're ready to abandon sprawlsville.
A lot of the houses we're talking about here are beyond the point of being rehabbed economically. Some were very poorly built in the first place and are at the end of their useful life. Some are just not able to accommodate today's standard of living - especially if we're trying to attract anyone other than singles and empty nesters to the city. We can be nostalgic all we want about how people used to raise 10 kids in a 400 square foot house, but that's just not the reality we're living in right now.
Developers are a lot more willing to buy empty lots than they are to buy blocks of derelict houses - especially if those houses come with any sort of preservation edict. It's a lot easier selling new residents on a whole new neighborhood rising from the ashes than it is convincing them to be pioneers in a neighborhood with unknown odds of bouncing back.
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