THE TELEGRAPH: Tired of Detroit's status as the symbol of everything wrong with urban America, its new mayor has come up with a radical solution: to bulldoze the city.
David Bing, a businessman and former all-star basketball player who entered politics late in life, says he has no choice.
The 2010 census is expected to reveal a population of about 800,000, down from a peak of 1.8 million in the Motor City heyday of the late 1950s.
The long decline of the car industry and all its spin-off business has been exacerbated by the collapse of a housing market that has left prices close to what they were 50 years ago, when lifestyle magazines featured Detroit as the most desirable city in the United States.
Decent three-bedroom homes can be bought for $10,000, but no one wants to buy.
Decades of poor and at times corrupt administration have also taken their toll, and with the city facing a deficit of between $85 and $124 million this year, the answer, says Mr Bing, is to accept reality and reduce the size of the city.
"There is just too much land and too many expenses for us to continue to manage the city as we have in the past," he said. "If we don't do it, this whole city is going to go down."
Plans currently being devised would be the most revolutionary carried out by a major American city. >>> Alex Spillius in Detroit | Friday, May 28, 2010
