LETTERS

Re “Bulldozing our cities may wreck our future,” Opinion, June 22

Gregory Rodriguez does a service by calling attention to the important public policy issue of the decline of many of America’s once-great cities. However, his take on bulldozing abandoned neighborhoods misses the point of these initiatives.

When cities have lost half their populations, a large percentage of their economic base and are facing massive amounts of infrastructure decline, changes in business as usual are essential.

What the shrinking-cities approach aims to do is consolidate urban areas to benefit from efficiencies in infrastructure and service delivery, remove areas from high potential for further blight and perhaps crime, and replace admittedly once wonderful urban spaces with open space.

The strategy is decidedly pro-urban.

Joseph F.C. DiMento

Irvine

The writer is a professor of law and of planning, policy and design at UC Irvine.