

Detroit urged to tear down 40,000 buildings - rmason
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/us/detroit-task-force-says-blight-cleanup-will-cost-850-million.html?_r=0

======
malandrew
Situations like this have always left me wondering why we don't have the
school and city equivalent of the Navy Seals.

When a hurricane or earthquake hits a region of the country, we have FEMA that
can come in and help stabilize the situation and get it back to where it
should be.

In the case of certain types of crime, special federal police forces get
involved, such as the behavioral crime unit of the FBI or the secret service
when counterfeiting is involved.

However when a city is going into decay or has particular issues reversing
negative trends, I don't get why we don't have an analogous task force team to
come into the city and help the local government get in from of the problem
from practitioners with experience addressing those same issues previously in
other cities.

The same goes for schools. We have so many schools out there with the school
equivalent of malignant cancer ruining the entire cultural fabric of the
schools and the surrounding neighborhood, but we don't have people who are the
best of the best at running schools and turning them around coming in like
doctors to address the problem with specialized knowledge and greater
resources than the local tax base can provide.

------
rmason
If anyone is interested here's the task force report:

[http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1173946/detroit-
blight...](http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1173946/detroit-blight-
removal-task-force-plan-may-2014.pdf)

