How Do You Fix a Broken City

[Seeker]

This is a problem for all North America.

Problem:

so-called 'white flight' to suburbs. The relatively wealthy cluster to distant suburbs, driving up property values and funding quality schools and other institutions. Also, they keep 'high quality' spending in this areas and tend to be culturally active and community involved.

creating a donut city with a downward spiral...neglect, closing businesses, and a run down look, crime or the appearance of crime. A vicious circle where there is less and less reason to invest and more and more risk. A rent controlled appartment building with crack smoking tenants (or appearance thereof)? No thanks says mr committed non-slimeball investor/landlord.

Attempted Solutions:

Zero Tolerance: the Giulani idea. Don't tolerate any crimes, crack down on things that degrade the cities image. Create the feel of a safe city. Police everywhere. High schools with cops and metal detectors.
Pros: kinda works given New York.
Cons: look at their budget. They have an AWFUL lot of people in jail because of various zero tolerance type measures. Those people are expensive, and they get out and continue to be even more of a problem.

Abandonment: A la Flint MI.
Pros: Cut your losses.
Cons: No one likes permablight.

New Concept Public Housing: Funky stuff with gazebos, greenspace, terraces, all that nice community stuff. Pools, parks. Infrastructure.
Cons: $$$

Gay People: Seems to have worked in most places. Gay people bring boutiques and small businesses downtown. And restaurants etc.
Pros: works
Cons: not enough gays. some people don't like to raise kids in areas with known bathhouses/bars.

So how would you fix a Broken City?

My Idea: Totally level downtown and replace it with a giant central park, just bicycles, footpaths, the Spotted Owl, all that ****. No one is allowed to live downtown.

[Q Classic]

or, turn it into a sunbelt city: kick everyone out of the city, build recklessly into the suburbs where the city has no jurisdiction, and then turn the city center into a commercial, touristy, and shopping district.

works for atlanta.

[Urban Ranger]

Tax the hell out of gas and the use of roads.

[Solly]

Subsidise property developers to rebuild quality yet affordable housing.

The humble terraced house, immortalised in television soaps and ridiculed by planners, is about to make a comeback - as a trendy, loft-style home with an affordable pricetag.

Developers last night unveiled plans for a £30m makeover of inner Salford, where Coronation Street was conceived, to rescue a community considered past the point of no return a few years ago.

In a pioneering venture that could bring new hope for tens of thousands of boarded-up terraces facing demolition, 430 homes in an area plagued by crime - and, latterly, by negative equity - have been earmarked for rebuilding. They could be rebranded as "mews" and sold for around £30,000 apiece.

The plan for the South Jubilee Street area, in the once-notorious Seedley-Langworthy district less than two miles from Manchester's vibrant centre, has been prepared by the company which has transformed redundant mills and warehouses into upmarket apartments throughout the north.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/regeneration/news/0,8367,974243,00.html

There are very, very few places in the developed world like inner Salford. It's good, knowing that one half of my family had lived there for many generations, that it is finally becoming an area not to speak ashamedly of.

[Solly]

Oops, I just quoted the Guardian...

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Tax the hell out of gas and the use of roads.

Won't that just aggravate the problem.

[Solly]

I only see this as a short-term problem.

I think a bigger problem is drug use among middle-class children in the wealthy suburbs and liberal attitudes to casual sex, in addition to sex education that is still way behind the times.

[Az]

Permit High-rise zoning, lower land sale taxes there. Use police.

Allocate funds to restore and renovate nice old buildings, and preserve them.

[Jac de Molay]

Tax breaks/Incentives for businesses to open shop in the city/ open up jobs.

Restoration of historical buildings/districts. Don't tear down but incorporate the history of a particular city - ala Pittsburgh.

Light rail/ public transit to connect the outer ring of suburbs.

Expedient removal of condemned/abandoned properties.

Some federal/state government oversight to root out waste and corruption, and instill accountability.

edit - More privatization of city services like trash removal.

[FrustratedPoet]

Gay people are a potential solution to urban decay?



That's one I've never heard before....

[Solly]

You can't find really queer statistics regarding their effects, FP...

My tutor last year once had an article in the Daily Mail saying how gay people earn more than straight people. However, they are still discriminated against. They should be earning even more.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DaShi
Won't that just aggravate the problem.

The idea is to force people to move back into the city by making the commuting from the 'burbs to city centre expensive.

Of course, this will have to be the same way in the whole country.

[Solly]

Might that not make business re-locate elsewhere than the city centre?

[Flubber]

Every city has this problem as many families want a detached home with a yard and this is just not available in the downtown.

General economic affluence seems to reduce the problem. Calgary for instance, does not have a major inner city issue and the downtown inner core remains fairly vibrant ( although the office tower part of the core is pretty empty at night)

I know that city planners are struggling with the issue and the solution always seems to be the creation of mixed use neighbourhoods in the city where businesses and residents co-exist.

A local paper did a piece on the death of the neighborhood. The premise is that people have less and less interaction with their neighbors since we live in all-residential areas and have to take a car to the nearest shopping area, sports area etc. They contrasted this with older neigborhoods more toward the core where people live and work in the same neighborhood

[Q Classic]

it's interesting to note that in some other countries, where they still have corner shops and bakeries and what not, slums and projects as we have them in the states don't exist.

there are bad parts of town, but they're not like how bad the south side of chicago was.


so one thing i would like to see is a lot of favoring of the small mom-and-pop stores...
at least, in other countries. in the us, since most, if not all, of them have vanished, it's a moot point.