One Way to Manage Shrinking Cities

The UK Guardian recently reported from beleaguered Flint, Mich., on a new plan to shrink the city by actually bulldozing unused buildings and neighborhoods. The idea is to concentrate the dwindling population and city services into a smaller area, or as Detroit has envisioned, many smaller urban centers separated by "forests and meadows". This proposal is apparently attracting the attention of the Obama administration. Is this is a budget-wise coping strategy, a plan for recovery, or the anti-sprawl movement's version of urban renewal?