Detroit and Flint looking to shrink — in different ways

The Flint Journal has an interesting article about how Detroit and Flint (and Saginaw, to a lesser degree) are looking at how to shrink their cities in the wake of plummeting population, but are taking different routes to that end. But Detroit is looking to force the issue with reluctant residents, while Flint is not:

Flint Mayor Dayne Walling has said repeatedly that the city will not save some Flint neighborhoods at the expense of others or encourage people to leave their homes.

In Detroit, it’s a different story.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has said he “absolutely” intends to relocate residents from mostly vacant neighborhoods and is bracing for legal challenges to his downsizing plan, media reports indicate.

So even though the cities’ past and present have run along parallel lines — separated by 68 miles along Interstate 75 — Flint and Detroit each could become a model of a different kind of right-sizing.

Either way, it certainly makes no sense to keep neighborhoods alive when 80 or 90 percent of the homes are abandoned and decomposing.