Foreclosures have made bulldozers busy – thanks to the thousands of derelict houses running to seed in the outer fringes of Phoenix or even the suburban areas of Washington D.C. There are malls lying vacant apart from the homes that with its ‘For sale’ and ‘foreclosure’ signs are churning out ghost towns. No more are there any signs of dynamic socio-economic progress as shady characters slink in out of these derelict houses after dark.

Many are of the opinion that unnecessary development in the suburbs of the suburbs or exurbs have to be razed to enable housing supply to return to normal levels that can be sustained. But many think that the bulldozers will not mow through the urban downtowns.

Flint in Michigan is prepared to shrink itself in a planned manner so as to keep alive. 65 miles to the north of Detroit this was once a proud industrial town. Today it has started taking innovative steps known as shrinking that will most probably catch on in other parts of the country. Reacting to the ceaseless economic troubles the authorities in Flint are thinking on these lines – hastening the decline so as to start building anew.

According to the New York Times the city officials are embarking upon a plan by which certain ghostly localities would be bulldozed. The residences would be brought closer and consolidated together with business outlets in areas closer to downtown. The vacant areas would be now cleared of all buildings and returned to Nature.

Plucking citizens from one place and planting them elsewhere is not an easy matter and full of political ramifications. It was admitted by the treasurer of the county is who is one of the advocates of the programmed for shrinking Flint said, “Not everyone’s going to win. But now, everyone’s losing.”
The formerly vibrant community of Flint is turning into dust with foreclosures being the latest in a series of trouble. Flint is the largest town in Genesee County. The problem is being tackled here as in Little Rock, Indianapolis and Little Rock with the setting up of county land banks. The institution being funded by public money will purchase neglected units and rehabilitate them and thus saving them and the community from the menace of squatters and vandals.

This attitude is in sharp contrast to the policy followed by banks like Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America that are aggressively pursuing foreclosure only to allow the houses to lie vacant – a blight on the landscape.


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