Anti-Homeless Laws and @HiddenCash: What's Ruining Our Cities This Week

Legislation that criminalizes the abandoned in Maine. A address that recommends bulldozing a fifth of Detroit. And abundance hunters digging up a California park. Plus an update: One man's plan to ruin an absolute accompaniment by abstraction it up WITH LIES. It's What's Ruining Our Cities.

Anti-homeless legislation is ruining Portland, Maine

This is one of those "this is not The Onion" stories: In the city-limits of Portland, Maine, a new law was anesthetized that makes it actionable for humans to ask for money while continuing on medians. If someone's bent accomplishing it, they could be fined... which makes actually no faculty because they were asking for money? A federal adjudicator has disqualified the law actionable and advancement groups are affronted because laws like this and added bans adjoin active in cars or camping criminalize the abandoned instead of authoritative efforts to advice them. [NPR]

Bulldozers are about to ruin Detroit

Detroit's rose-colored activation was accurate in this week's New York Times Magazine, but a new address recommends bulldozing a abounding one-fifth of the city. One-fifth? A babysitter accumulation that calls itself the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force claims that 22 percent of the city's barrio are blighted, abounding of them active by squatters, and demography those barrio down would acquiesce the city-limits to alpha fresh. Meanwhile, the city-limits has its own plan, Building Detroit, which helps by auctioning abandoned backdrop for low, low prices. Seems like that might be a bigger another than steamrolling the place? [New Statesman]

A scavenger coursing broke a California park

San Francisco absolute acreage broker Jason Buzi hides envelopes of money throughout the accompaniment and drops clues to their abode at @HiddenCash. Sounds innocent and fun, right? A contempo clue beatific humans running, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World-style, through a Southern California park. "Roughly 1,000 humans trampled on plants, destroyed fences and sprinklers and even approved to abate a anew buried timberline assertive banknote was hidden in the beginning dirt," according to the Los Angeles Times. @HiddenCash will accord the esplanade $5000 to adjustment the damages—which is $5000 beneath that he'll be able to adumbrate in the future. [LA Times]

Update: That Six Californias dude is still ruining California

We already knew that VC guy Tim Draper had a absurd abstraction to bisect California into six mini-states. Now, it seems that his aggregation will stop at annihilation to get his abstraction on the ballot—including lying to voters and adage it's about adopting the minimum allowance so they'll assurance the petition. [Valleywag]

Photo: Betsy Blaney/AP

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