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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
Derby, CT is a small, working-class, post-industrial town with a population which has been stagnant at about 12,000 for more than six decades.
The geniuses over at the Connecticut DOT decided that this obviously meant that the town's Main Street needed to be widened, by twice the size, destroying a number of historic buildings and uprooting numerous small community businesses in the process. That red stripe on the far left of the "After" pic is the new edge of the street.
City or state would have had to pay to buy the properties anyway, though. Then the money spent on the widening could easily have been spent to modernize and update (or otherwise improve) the buildings.
They're also building an apartment building about 1/2 a block from there that is walkable to the commuter rail and bus station. The road was widend but it also razed some derelict building for the Greenway park. Just over the hill from these pics they re-did the bridge across the river with wide a walkable/rideable sidewalk.
Tldr: Yes, wider road, but lots of good stuff added too.
Even completely blind guessing, over even a 5 year gap, I'll bet the price of tearing them down was less than half the costs to the local community as keeping them and adding enough incentives to make businesses actually move in.
They could've totally used the space differently after, but tearing down was very likely the smart call.
If the road is a state route, the construction costs may even have been moved to the state tax budget and significantly save the local community money. The year on year costs wouldn't even be a fair fight at that point. They may have even made the road expansion as an intentional call to leverage the state tax burden to alleviate local tax burdens. Not knowing the area, I'm not gonna judge the call.
Tearing down the properties has reduced their local property tax base and also no doubt reduced the values of the properties across the streets as well. It's creating a downward spiral of local tax revenue while no doubt increasing state maintenance obligations.
Decisions like this are why small towns like this are going broke. They make themselves easier to drive through and tear down the properties that constitute their tax base.
Only maybe, and assuming that the properties didn't already belong to the city anyhow. Often a city will purchase property to be able to eat the costs for new businesses moving in. However, the back drop is empty, so this wasn't a popular location. If the city couldn't get someone to rent without modernization, then the result was fair for property that was likely built out of the way when the city was growing since op said they were a little older and the population was stagnate.
I'm not arguing the road was a good call, I'm just saying keeping the buildings may not have been either. Another use would have been smarter, heck, even a solar farm given the open area to provide energy for the local community if the state government hasn't banned it like some.