Forced relocation takes bite out of blight

A number of older East Coast and Midwest cities have experienced severely declining populations as traditional industries close down or move elsewhere around the globe.

In so many ways, the loss of residents sits heavily on those who stay on, from a decline in services and educational opportunities for children to diminished tax rolls and boarded-up stores.

It doesn't matter if you have a good job with high pay in a city that has been in decline -- it will still be a burden to your pocketbook because the value of your home has probably peaked and in some cities like Detroit, has been dramatically slashed.


Even if you lived in a "good" area of a city like Detroit, home values can't be maintained as more and more of your neighbors go elsewhere looking for jobs.


The question is, can't anything be done to help?


My suggestion is a radical one.


In cities where the loss of jobs has been so dramatic that residents have been moving away for decades, the city government needs to make the drastic decision to reduce the areas within its boundaries where housing is available. The concept means selectively zoning out housing, removing existing individual residents and returning a specific section of the city to green space.


Let's say, for example, your city once boasted a population of 400,000 people crowded into 25 square miles of space. That was back in 1950, but now your city counts only a populace of 200,000 all still living within the same 25 square miles. Populations rise and fall, but on the East Coast and Midwest, the boundaries of the cities never change.


I say keep the boundaries and create parks. If your city of now 200,000 people has most of that population living in the 15-square-mile southwest corridor, while the 10-square-mile northeast corridor has experienced the biggest population loss, and, indeed, fewer than 100 families are now inhabited there, I say boost the southwest corridor and return the northeast corridor to nature.


There are a number of once flourishing cities east of the Mississippi that have been in a steady decline for decades, from Newark, N.J., to Youngstown, Ohio, but Detroit seems to be the most egregious example. In the 1950s, Detroit was one of the country's largest cities with 1.5 million people, but has seen those numbers diminish to 750,000 as the city has declined along with the U.S. auto industry.


What has that meant for the local housing market? The Chicago Tribune reported the median price for a home sold at the end of 2008 in Detroit was $7,500. That's right, just $7,500! In thriving cities, people pay that much for a parking space.