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Found this interesting editorial (albeit a bit old) about the decline of some of America's major cities and what could/should be done about the vast abandonment. Here's the link:
About four people lived in each household in 1950. Now two people live in each household. A city could have lost almost half it's population and still have the same number of households. That would seem to indicate that a city is stable and not growing, but not dying either.
On the west coast, the now-vacant areas are not located within the cities but on the suburban fringe, where developers built "drive till you qualify" subdivisions on the far edge of the metropolitan area, making long commutes pretty much mandatory. Those ones are sitting vacant, while central cities seem to be filling in and filling up.
Cities need density without it they can not function. In some cases getting rid of areas with extremely low density is something that must be done.
Chicago is a place like jimmyrev mention where the number of people per household has dropped. There are very few totally abandoned areas here.
However Detroit has areas that look like they have been run over by a bomber. You might have a block or two with only one house left in Chicago. However Detroit seems to have block after block of that.
Those empty blocks can be expensive for a city. First no property taxes or low property taxes on empty lots. Second you still need to provide services like police, fire department, ambulance, lighting but there are fewer people there needing them(not efficient to have 1 fire truck sitting around for ten houses) and it causes your police force to be spread thin. A smart downsizing could be a good thing.
This is one of those things that is painful but perhaps needs to be done. Great planning is key as is thorough review and strategic conservation of historic resources. For many of these cities, the very thing that people want to tear down (historic structures) is what is attracting a lot of people to the city. The fact that most any rustbelt city has higher quality historic resources than practically every sunbelt city combined is beginning to turn heads.
Sacramento is an exception in having a relatively OK inner city and decaying suburbs. It is actually quite creepy when you think about it because you travel through some very blighted areas when you travel out of downtown in most directions. In most areas it is the inner-city that has the decaying neighbourhoods with neato architecture, and those are the ones being bulldozed. Stockton and Fresno are typical examples of what is going on in most American cities. Nobody really living downtown. Downtown is surrounded by really blighted neighbourhoods, with the exception of a neighbourhood or two that the locals have decided is "cooler" than the other neighbourhoods of the same era.
There is also financial politics involved in it. Older homes in most areas are worth half the value of newer neighbourhoods, thus property tax revenue is a motive in many cases, which is why a number of cities have declared normal, but lower-income working-class neighbourhoods as blighted so they can use eminent domain to tear down the neighbourhood and redevelop it into something that generates more revenue for the city, and forces people into live in areas where housing creates more tax revenue.
Let nature take it back or let the building decay sufficiently such that it becomes economically wise for someone to buy the building and tear it down selling the salvage as they go. There's no reason for the government to just buy a bunch of abandoned and half built buildings willy nilly. Maybe some if they plan to build a park or something, but not every one in town.
Besides I imagine it would be quite fun to go exploring abandoned buildings that obviously had no owner who would care.
There is also financial politics involved in it. Older homes in most areas are worth half the value of newer neighbourhoods, thus property tax revenue is a motive in many cases, which is why a number of cities have declared normal, but lower-income working-class neighbourhoods as blighted so they can use eminent domain to tear down the neighbourhood and redevelop it into something that generates more revenue for the city, and forces people into live in areas where housing creates more tax revenue.
Thanks for nothing The Supreme Court!
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