> <i>Once part of the central city, the suburb gains a high-profile mayor in the public spotlight who is now responsible for what happens there. It becomes part of a city with diverse neighborhoods and housing types that will rise and fall on different cycles. And there are the assets of a big city downtown to draw on to help finance services.</i><p>Why would a city agree to merge with a distressed, money-draining suburb?<p>There is no solution for these suburbs: they aren't economically sustainable, their income and household density is too small to support the vast infrastructure they require. The lower the density, the more miles of roads, pipes, wires are needed per capita, and more policing, fire services, etc.<p>Let them fail and wipe them out. Instead of wasting money trying to sustain a broken system, provide resources to facilitate moving to mid and high-density housing in the central city.<p>If people still want to live in large houses in low-density areas, let them pay for it.
Annexation was a strategy used by Columbus OH some years ago to continue growth past the limits of its suburban sprawl (and officially past the size of Cleveland, making it defacto the largest city in Ohio). Cleveland has been talking about doing the same for some time now, but I don't think the state government has been very supportive. Cleveland proper isn't large in itself, but the metro area is about the size of Austin: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistic...</a><p>A negotiation for merger between Cleveland and East Cleveland was shot down last year because of some pretty ridiculous demands by the EC leadership:<p><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/08/east_cleveland_wants_to_keep_r.html#incart_m-rpt-1" rel="nofollow">http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/08/east_clevel...</a><p>Some discussion at the time: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Cleveland/comments/4zeubq/east_cleveland_has_conditions_for_cleveland_merger/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/Cleveland/comments/4zeubq/east_clev...</a>
<i>By not merging, those black residents are cut off from the tax base being created by the technology and medical industry booms happening in the city of Pittsburgh next door. Black control in many of these suburbs has meant inheriting a community where previous generations of residents did the equivalent of running up 250,000 miles on the odometer, then handed over the keys to what's now used-up jalopy and walked away.</i><p>That's not how real estate works. It's not a car. Usually, when a city experiences a boom, its suburbs benefit by housing workers from the booming industries.<p>If people choose to extend their commute or pay higher prices for residences in the city just to avoid you, I'm guessing you gave them a very good reason to avoid you. Why did the original middle class residents leave?
It's funny, we created communities that are too low density, and which contain almost no commercial or industrial development to support the tax base, and then we act surprised that they can't sustain themselves.<p>These communities seem to me like unsustainable resorts built for the upper middle class of fifty years ago.
If this inner ring suburb is dying then the city is also dying. Inner ring suburbs are usually one of the first to benefit as city workers, looking for a shorter commute, buy housing nearby.<p>My city, Miami, dilapidated shacks are being snatched up for 300-500k, cash. And they are <20 minutes from the city core. That is what a ring suburb in a thriving city looks like.<p>If they aren’t getting developers sniffing around driving up the tax base then merging with the city won’t fix it.
I thought British local government was a mess, but it seems US local government is much worse.<p>One thing that jumps out as soon as you look at a map is that East Cleveland isn't a geographically distinct built-up-area. It's not really a city of its own, I suspect much of its employment comes from Cleveland proper.<p>It seems to me that a lot of these urban sprawls should be merged into what the UK would call "unitary authorities", which could then better make area-wide planning decisions.
It seems like the problems are from low density so I wonder if there's a way to set up an economic incentive for residents of suburbs to congregate in naturally growing/shrinking high density clusters so empty areas remain completely empty instead of sparsely populated and can have their services shut down.<p>Perhaps property tax grows the fewer property tax-paying people are in a street/small area. Ulitimately making the one guy at the end of a deserted street pay for the sewer pipe and road going all the way up the street.
These suburbs are "dying" because the majority of their population are low-skilled, low-educated people who have fewer and fewer opportunities to prosper in an economy that is becoming more and more automated and skills-oriented. The blight and decay is just a symptom of the actual problem, which is decreasing opportunity for these people.<p>That's one of the reasons I oppose opening our borders to a flood of additional low-skilled, low-educated people. It hurts the ones who are already here.<p>I'm sure this will attract a lot of downvotes, and I'm perfectly fine with that, but I'd appreciate it if the downvoters would also point out the flaws they perceive in my logic.
One only needs to fly over Detroit to see what happens when suburbs die. At night, huge areas of houses with only 1 or 2 having lights on. In the day, you see giant areas where there are no people, houses are falling apart, and some areas where they've simply torn down the buildings and left the land empty.<p>How many more cities will see this fate happen to their outer edges?
China could deal with this problem pretty easily. They don’t have that pesky <i>strong property rights</i> issue like the US does. They could just relocate everyone and bulldoze the suburb.
It is almost as if the US has been promoting unsustainable development and poor land use for decades and it is starting to bite cities and states in the ass.
I'm always genuinely surprised that we don't build down instead of building up, especially when it comes to cities. Sure there are drainage issues but the difference in heating and cooling needs would prove beneficial. The only real reason I can think of is the risk of collapse, which we already have with above ground buildings. This would provide more affordable housing to those in cities themselves.<p>While it wouldn't solve the immediate issue it might mitigate some of the issues that cause the flight to suburbs in the first place.
East Cleveland went down with the incandescent lightbulb. It's home to Nela Park, the first industrial park, built in 1901 by the National Electric Lamp Association and later acquired by General Electric. For most of a century, the East Cleveland Lamp Works source of incandescent light bulbs. There were R&D facilities; the compact fluorescent lamp was invented there, but not produced there.<p>Now Nela Park is down to about 300 people and GE is looking at exiting the lighting business completely.
Good relation with a blog post i read recently: <a href="https://econimica.blogspot.bg/2017/10/the-tale-of-two-americasurban-rise.html" rel="nofollow">https://econimica.blogspot.bg/2017/10/the-tale-of-two-americ...</a>