Trying to Raze the Recession

At the turn of the century, the city of Flint, Michigan was a lively metropolis. The original home of General Motors boasted grand hotels and lavish restaurants that have faded over the past forty years.

Boarded-up windows and foreclosed homes now line many of the city’s streets. Local officials faced the risk of those empty houses becoming magnets for crime and pestilence, or trying something new: tearing them down.

More than one thousand abandoned homes have been demolished so far, due in part to the efforts of Dan Kildee. He’s the treasurer of Michigan’s Genesee county and a driving force behind Flint’s efforts to raze abandoned neighborhoods. A number of other Rust Belt cities are closely watching the results. Dan Kildee joined us from his office in Flushing, Michigan.

The Telegraph (UK): U.S. Cities May Have to Be Bulldozed to Survive

(Photo by justindula via Flickr/Creative Commons)