Paging Hari Seldon …

The mayor of Flint, Michigan is considering retreating from the Periphery (seen via View from the Porch):

Temporary Mayor Michael Brown made the off-the-cuff suggestion Friday in response to a question at a Rotary Club of Flint luncheon about the thousands of empty houses in Flint.

Brown said that as more people abandon homes, eating away at the city's tax base and creating more blight, the city might need to examine "shutting down quadrants of the city where we (wouldn't) provide services."

Will an abandoned community of Encyclopedists restart civilization?