A block?? I'll take two !!"
Posted on 04/18/2016 8:44:37 PM PDT by ghosthost
The city of Baltimore worked to tear down thousands of homes on Monday in an effort to lift itself out of decades of urban decay. The city and state are paying millions for demolition in the hope that, one day, developers will see vacant lots as a land of opportunity.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
A block?? I'll take two !!"
Apparently this works sometimes but sometimes just leaves big areas of nothing that don't get redeveloped or ends up becoming something uglier after displacing tens of thousands of people.
Who knows? Maybe three?
I guess you could just let them remain wild and “private property” but not worry about trespassing. I saw a news show where they are talking with this older black gentleman that lives in his broken down house in the heart of Detroit. The whole time there’s all these dogs barking in the background.
He’s complaining about being so poor, and I’m thinking “Why don’t you get rid of some of your dogs!?”
Later on he goes out back and says “These are my coon-hunting dogs. I got a whole freezer full of coons - I’ll cook you up some. We go out in the neighborhood and hunt coons. I sell them for $5 a coon. If you cook em’ right they’re mighty tasty!” (I may be off on the price. Interesting character - and played guitar and sang the blues).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx-yVqtICOw
The above is a different video of what I recall. Youtube wasn’t playing for me at the moment.
Even if they’re structurally sound, you still want to get rid of then because they tend to turn into crackhouses.
They already tried this in Newark NJ on Valentine’s Day 2015; it didn’t work. The lots were sold very cheap ($1,000) to couples with the stipulation that the buyers had to build on it within a couple of years; people showed up to buy them, but according to a follow-up story nothing was done with most parcels that were sold. As the line of people queued up to buy them looked like gibsmedats, I’d imagine they lost interest once they realized 1) They were on the hook for building on it, and 2) They would pay property taxes. The people on line didn’t look like the taxpaying type...
I guess the kind of people that would take advantage of this had long ago fled, but I wouldn’t mind if I could buy the homes on either side of or behind mine (to demolish the homes and simply have a larger property). Unfortunately the areas simply aren’t safe and the governments are broke (so nothing gets fixed or maintained).
Habitat For Humanity is demolishing homes at this point (because the cities that seize them for tax liens can’t even pay to demolish them); never mind the undesirable areas, Americans in general are no longer buying detached single family homes because 1) they rarely have children, 2) they can’t/won’t spring for the growing property tax burdens, and 3) they know they need to retain their mobility to follow their jobs elsewhere if possible.
I have heard too many horror stories of people who thought to bring gentrification to Baltimore only to have their places broken into, to be mugged, et cetera.
“...in the hope that, one day, developers will see vacant lots as a land of opportunity.”
Hope - sounds like a perfect business plan to me!
I believe I have the solution: Erect the Jammy Hussein Obama Presidential Library on one of these sites. Nobody is going to go there anyway, so there is no safety issue. Government funds are going to be wasted somewhere (we know that), so, waste them in Bal-mer.
The young entrepreneurs in Baltimore will rapidly turn any vacant lot into a drugstore. No need to build anything.
Good for them to tear down the unoccupied places.
Bad that taxpayer dollars paid for it.
The unintended consequence is that urban improvement chases out the poor urban families.
I hate to be a naysayer, but this is like a no win situation.
IF you demolish old buildings, but the people who move in to the new buildings are the ghetto residents who used to live in the old buildings, then the new buildings will turn into slum housing anyway.
If they are able to renovate the neighborhoods, and a better class of people move in, they will displace the old ghetto residents, and liberals/black lives matter types will be angry at that turn of events. The old ghetto dwellers will have moved on and turn some other area into a slum neighborhood instead.
And if anyone does build, and the city doesn not fix those issues, all the new building will get turned to crap very soon.
Your description of NO East before Katrina isn’t correct. Your imagination is in overdrive.
Says it all, right there.
I’ll open up a book store!! jk
I know I wouldn’t move to Baltimore any time soon.
I envy all the detectorists that get to pound that virgin ground!!!
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