No the first response should not be to tear down a vacant building: rehabilitate it.

My MIL has incredibly short sighted views about "blight."  Her response, "tear it down," fails to acknowledge that a vacant lot is blight too.  She's a product of 50+ years in Orange County, California, during the period of its major growth as a suburban county converting from farmland.

(Even she refused to acknowledge a blighted house in her subdivision--which dates to the 1960s and 1970s.)

She always looked down on Suzanne and I for our "urban lifestyle," living in the city, although when we were together in DC we lived in a mixed building neighborhood-ours is a bungalow--near Takoma Park, Maryland, but in DC.  S didn't want to live the rowhouse life, because she doesn't like noise.

Anyway, in my Nextdoor thread was an ad for the new Maye House apartment building on the outskirts of downtown at 508 E. South Temple.  Since we've been here in 2019 and before, the building had been an abandoned former medical building, close to the Salt Lake Regional Hospital, vacant for many years.

Before and after photos show investment, not demolition, is the best cure for vacant properties.

I'm a sucker for a swimming pool.