The End of the City in America

The fate of cities across America is fragile many cities are on the edge of insolvency and bankruptcy. The states in which these cities are incorporated in are also facing severe fiscal problems and budgetary shortcomings. It is prudent therefore to have a discussion on a number of issues from regionalism to quality of living in face of these severe financial realities confronting american cities.

Many of these cities because of these dire financial distress provide less services to their residents from fewer police and fire department services to street lights being shuttered to EMS response times being extended and certain calls being ignored completely. The spectrum of a complete shutdown of city services is no longer a script in a science fiction novel but a real time reality for public employees in our cities.

Some residents in city neighborhoods are locking themselves and families in barricaded homes. The very idea of state national guards taking over law enforcement duties in many bankrupted cities across the nation is real and on the agenda of many city planners and state legislatures. The EFM legislation currently unfolding in Lansing many have argued is a blueprint for the takeover of Detroit .

With this new downsized urban centers there has been an increase in vigilante groups, religious cults and people hibernating within their homes only coming out in the day time and rushing to return to home before the night comes to fill the air. When there is despair in the city air it fosters and cultivates paranoia, urban myths, and fear.

In the face of this devolution of american cities across the country it is imperative that strategies and ideas must be developed to confront the end of cities. This examination of cities and life in this new economic and social, political reality however dos not have to be a negative or crisis proposition. Life can be come renewed and reenergize if we have the courage to design a new urban frontier.

Regionalized cities which are the consolidation of other failed cities could create a platform of better services, improved schools and better over all quality of life in the neighborhood that are arteries of life in our urban locations. People simply are no longer loyal to cities and are more interested in their quality of life.

What is driving people living in the new world order is the right to live quality life styles and living conditions that empower good food, safe streets, fresh air, beautiful surroundings, people who want to love life instead of battling decay and decadence.

The equation for a new city maybe the complete destruction and collapse of the old city and its borders and boundaries. People want their lives to be purposeful and meaningful, they don't care who or what government agency is picking up the trash, policing the streets and where the water and lights come from. People want service that work and make their lives more livable.

Designing a new city begins with the objective and desires of those living in the old city and those living outside the city. It may even require that cities no longer be called cities but renamed and redefined as Urban Regions with one police department, one school district, one water board, one energy company, one health department, one park and recreation department...one.....one.....one...