Honey, I shrunk the city

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Economically, Las Vegas is not in the same universe with Detroit.

But Detroit faces a problem for which Las Vegas should at least take note. In Detroit, it actually makes sense to shrink the city by taking selected neighborhoods off-line. As the Detroit mayor said:

"You can't support every neighborhood," (Mayor) Bing said. "You can't support every community across this city. Those communities that are stable, we can't allow them to go down the tubes. That's not a good business decision from my vantage point."

Las Vegas, meanwhile, supports some far-flung communities that came to a standstill in the current recession. Would it make sense, say, to use some of that stimulus money to extricate lenders and borrowers from subdivisions that are sparsely populated by owners and fast becoming suburban little Detroits, hard to provide services in the form of schools, police, fire, etc.

In Detroit, a bulldozer would actually be a community improvement.

In Las Vegas? I'm not sayin', I just sayin'. The Detroit concept is something Complete Las Vegans should watch ... and maybe openly discuss. You can read more here.