"With Gov. Scott Walker hinting that he may move to end the city's longtime residency rule for public employees..."

"... Mayor Tom Barrett went on the offensive Friday, saying he's certain property values would drop if the requirement goes away."

"People in [the southwest and northwest sides] of the city are concerned about their property values," Barrett said. "They should remember when their property values go down that it was Governor Walker who did that to them if he proposes this. I'm still hoping he doesn't propose this."

Isn't that the wrong reason for requiring residency? You want to use people — deny them free choice — in order to bolster the real estate market? I can see not wanting the city to hollow out as people escape to the suburbs. You don't want Milwaukee to turn into Detroit, but what about the real people who work for the city? If they want to live too far out in the suburbs, their only option is to give up their jobs?

Note the big effect on who teaches the schoolchildren of Milwaukee. And then one of the reasons you might not want to live in Milwaukee is that you don't think the schools are good enough. A vicious circle there, no?

From the comments at the link:

I am considering moving out of Milwaukee. I own a $200,000 house and my taxes are almost as much as my mortgage. How can you even consider making someone pay almost $7K year for a $200k house and I can't even send my kids to the public schools. Don't even get me started on crime.... clean up the city and you won't have to hold employees hostage!

On the other side, also from the comments:

If you draw a city paycheck, the city has every right to require you to contribute to the local tax base by living there. If that's simply too much to bear, there are other places to work. No one is forcing anyone to work for the city of Milwaukee.

"It was my first trip to Detroit, Michigan, so naturally..."

"I convinced a local to give me the 'ruins porn' tour."

ADDED: That comic got me interested in finding some photos of the Heidelberg Project. I recommend this (and then click the "older" button for more).

"I heard a thump and then someone moaning."

Living and dying in Detroit.

Detroit police and EMS determine that a man died of natural causes, and it's the mortician that finds the gunshot wound.

Which also means that the police did not preserve the evidence needed to investigate.

Police technicians did not scour the room or take photos until later. There was no immediate preservation of possible clues. Visitors tracked in and out. His family took Brooks' cell phone. And, unless this was a suicide, a killer had precious hours to elude capture.

Even the clothes Brooks wore had been stripped off and discarded, as is customary when a funeral home picks up a body. The clothing was retrieved, but also is now most likely tainted as evidence.

"I am pissed off," Shakira Bonds, 20, one of Brooks' daughters, told the Free Press on Tuesday. "I don't know who to go to."

The dead man, Leslie Brooks, was 59.

ADDED: This seems vaguely relevant:

"Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space..."

"... by eliminating almost half its streetlights. As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city....  can’t afford to fix them."

“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”

"Detroit evolving into a haven for artists."

"Cheap rents and a pioneering spirit are attracting artists, restaurants and nightspots to Detroit's decimated urban core. It's still early, but change is palpable."

Mayor Bloomberg's plan to repopulate Detroit: Let in immigrants — but they have to agree to stay in Detroit.

On "Meet the Press" today, a propos of nothing David Gregory asked and with zero follow-up from Gregory, Bloomberg came out with this:

This is a country that was built by immigrants, this is a country that became a superpower by--because of its immigrant population. And unless we continue to have immigrants, we cannot maintain as a superpower.

And I'll give you a good example of how you can fix some of the problems in America. Take a look at the big old industrial cities--Detroit, for example. Got a great mayor in Mayor Bing. But the population has left. You got to do something about that. And if I were the federal government, assuming you could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together, you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit and live there for five or 10 years, start businesses, take jobs, whatever. You would populate Detroit overnight because half the world wants to come here. We forget, we, we whip ourselves a little bit too much. We still are the world's greatest democracy. We still have hope for--if you want to have a better life for yourself and your kids, this is where you want to come. And you could use something like immigration policy, at no cost to the federal government, to fix a lot of the problems that we have.

We've been talking about this over in the Tree Bud Café. Irene said:

I thought this was very odd. "Gulag" came to mind.

Freeman Hunt said:

I'd comment on the Bloomberg comment, but it's hard to type with my jaw sitting on the keyboard.

Irene said:

Freeman, that was my reaction. Imagine if Donald Trump or Sarah Palin had said it....

Blooomberg = Trump after Finishing School.

Bloomberg has the Mr. Moderation act, but underneath it, perhaps he's out of his mind.

"New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling."

"But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city."

Also, Newark... says Patti Smith.

Hey, everybody! Let's raze Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.

The Obama administration is considering bulldozing parts of blighted, shrinking cities:

"The real question is not whether these cities shrink – we're all shrinking – but whether we let it happen in a destructive or sustainable way," said [Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, Michigan, where Flint is located]. "Decline is a fact of life in Flint. Resisting it is like resisting gravity."...

Choosing which areas to knock down will be delicate but many of them were already obvious, he said.

The city is buying up houses in more affluent areas to offer people in neighbourhoods it wants to demolish. Nobody will be forced to move, said Mr Kildee.

"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow," he said.

Mr Kildee acknowledged that some fellow Americans considered his solution "defeatist" but he insisted it was "no more defeatist than pruning an overgrown tree so it can bear fruit again."

Nobody will be forced to move? People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow?

First, I'm sure people will be forced to move if this thing gets going.

Second, you can't just return to nature by removing the streets and buildings. What will these non-urban buffer zones really look like? Even if it is something like a forest — made of very fast-growing trees? — or meadow, what sorts of animals — rodent and human — will run wild there?

I don't mean to be completely negative. Just asking a couple obvious questions.

In Detroit, the fight against organized... pillow fights.

"Michael Davis of Hamtramck says police confiscated the 32-year-old man's pillows but returned their cases. He says he was told that he needed a permit."