"The Peace Pole will consist of an organic-looking wooden pole with the message, 'May Peace Prevail on Earth' in four different languages on four sides,..."

They're sprucing up Lisa Link Peace Park.

Tom Link, son of Lisa Link, served as a planning committee member on the project for 2.5 years.

“My mother would’ve been comfortable with the type of people that use the park, but a lot of people can’t deal with homelessness and poverty,” Link said.

Do you think a multilingual pole will turn things around?

How about an ATM machine? That's also part of the plan:

[T]he panhandling ordinance of the city states that panhandling is not permitted within 50 feet of an ATM machine, a common activity performed by the park dwellers.

“There is a perception that this plan is solely is to discourage panhandling, and I don’t support that motivation in any way,” said an opposing commission member. “Now we’re looking at an ATM that I was not thrilled with and a social engineering aspect that could be very controversial.”

And very welcome!

IN THE COMMENTS: Chip Ahoy asked:

What four languages?

Hieroglyphic, demotic, Greek, and Algic?

Sofa King said:

What four languages?

Latin, Elvish, Klingon, and C++

"The families in will be trapped inside the 20' maximum security-looking wall for about three weeks."

A new reality show called "Block Party."

I happen to be reading a book that is in part about how suburbanites hole up in their individual houses and don't interact in the ways that people used to do when they were compressed in old-time city neighborhoods, so it amuses me to see a reality show that's about forcing them to do what the normal structure of their community allows them to avoid.

More about the book later. (I'm recording a diavlog with the author which I'll link to in due time.)

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.