What do you tell a town that is facing increased urban blight, skyrocketing crime rates, neighborhood abandonment, high unemployment, brain drain, etc, etc?

My Sustainable Development professor in the Business School posed this question to our class every day. During each case study, after each lecture, at least once a week.  As a consultant, planner, administrator, what do you tell your board to do?

As the resident MPA interloper and loudmouth, I would often say the first thing that would come to my mind.

Merge with another town…..

Find a business niche…..

Get a community college branch nearby, educate and/or retrain workers…..

Redevelop the commercial district…..

Shrink the town…..

Flint, Michigan is one example of, probably, hundreds of cities that are dying; high unemployment, the foreclosure crisis, and young people and families moving out of town have left whole neighborhoods in decline.  Last year I drove through neighborhoods in Detroit and observed that on many streets, for every occupied home there were three or four that were vacant and boarded up.

I was saddened by the sight, especially as I’d always thought of Detriot as the quintessential city.  As I drove out of town, I started to brainstorm ways that depressed communities, like Flint, Detroit, and many others around the country, can regenerate themselves.

One way is to cut off the parts that aren’t working and concentrate on the parts that are working.

Otherwise known as planned shrinkage.

I think Flint has the right idea. This method is not without its problems, as the article suggests, but with a transparent, deliberate, democratic process the community could be left much better than where they started.

What should a city that wants to shrink do?

• Decide which parts of town are viable and worth saving.
• Relocate residents into those viable parts of town.
• Concentrate community and economic redevelopment only in viable areas
• Demolish old (unviable) areas
• Create greenspace rather than brown or grayfields

What would a city have in the end?

• Increased Diversity: Planned shrinkage can be used to create mixed income, mixed use neighborhoods with local serving commercial and entertainment districts.
• Increased Density: If Flint and other cities can redevelop and shrink quickly, and retain current residents, they will be left with more people in a smaller area (duh).  Which, to me, is the definition of a city.
• Lower service delivery costs: Police patrols, garbage truck routes, public schools, social and health services are among those costs that will go down with fewer miles of town.  Governmental capital costs for things like water and sewer expansion will also decrease.
• Recaptured Greenspace: By demolishing old buildings and going back to nature, the community will have more trees, room for parks, healthier air quality, and all those other good things that come along with not living in a sprawling concrete jungle.
• Diversified business portfolio: What do small retail businesses need to survive? People to shop in their stores. More people in a small geographic area signals to potential businesses that there is a viable, nearby market for goods and services. And when those businesses come into town, they can stay in businesses, and attract more businesses, which increases sales taxes, property taxes, etc.
• Vibrance: There is something to be said about full storefronts, people on the street, and a visable community.  Smaller, dense, busy communities are the kind of communities that attract visitors and residents.