I bet if we had UBI of around $2500 monthly people who didn’t have to worry about income would eventually start making those houses habitable again. Especially if they made the zoning laws so you could run small businesses out of those houses and if they didn’t allow competition from large chains. Make the law so that if you fix a home up it’s yours but you can’t rent them out. The owners would have to actually live there in the community. Those houses are large enough to have front rooms that could serve as small grocery stores, cafes, clinics, pharmacies, small schools, funeral homes, law offices, bike shops, pubs, music venues, small gyms, barbers, tayloring and shoe repair, and whatever else people need. The potential to make it one of the most livable places in America is right there. It just needs to be removed from the shadow of the oligarchy that destroyed it by building an industry owned by very few people who could just pull it away without regard for the community. Even if those autoplants had been owned in a real cooperative employee owned business model instead of the top down corporate model this would have never happened.
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