Why is the city buying up all these houses????

[Robin Cox]

Hi Peeps!  

We currently invest in C class neighborhoods, cash flowing well.  Close by is a nice revitalization area that we would love to jump into before the prices go up.  Parts of the area are still depressed.  The house I'm looking at is 45k, needs so much work that I'm probably going to offer 25k.  Anyway, I'm just checking the other houses in the area to see how much they've sold for and low and behold the city owns 9 of the 14 houses and 2 empty lots in one block!  One block!  

I have no idea what this means.  So I'm asking you who've been around awhile.  Is this a good thing or bad thing?  I'm thinking good because seriously there's a new outdoor amphitheater, Brew House, community center/splash park being constructed 1-2 blocks over, and this road ends at the river.  I think it's a no brainer to put some money here but I wonder if the city is just waiting and trying to buy up everything so they can tear it all down and make a fill-in-the-blank-whatever and then I'm stuck with a rental across the street from this ____?____ thing. 

Thoughts?