Shrinking Cities

Worth Reading: Youngstown, Ohio, Tries To 'Shrink' Smartly - It links to a Wall Street Journal story that only members can access, but this synopsis is enough for my purposes.

The example that Youngstown, OH is setting is one that many Upstate NY cities ought to take note of. Rather than railing against the slow decay of certain neighborhoods, the administration has decided to embrace its newer, smaller size. To that end, thousands of demolitions are being planned, which will hopefully be followed by the creation of large amounts of public green space. This type of bold urban movement is usually quickly bound and killed by civic red tape: but it may be that Youngstown is small enough already that state and federal bodies will restrain themselves from stifling a non-status quo experiment.

The idea is simple, but radical: a city's former tax base was able to support significantly larger infrastructure and public works programs than its current, smaller, population is able to bear. Generally, municipalities will try to continue doing the same maintenance and repair they always have - a bitter pill for Public Works administrators, set to the task of keeping afloat roads and bridges with a constantly shrinking budget. To make matters worse, it has been largely accepted that what brings folks the most pride in their neighborhood is exactly the sort of thing that suffers as post-manufacturing cities shrink - well-paved roads, clean streets, and quick and reasonable enforcement of local housing code.

As the roads and structure appearance begins to suffer, perceptions of neighborhoods begin to decline - as one feels less and less pleased with one's place of residence, the less inclined one is to participate in civic events. It is a downward spiral: as things get worse, the propensity to improve them decreases - after all, the farther down the drain things get, the more effort it is going to take to get them even back to zero.

In this way, it is interesting to see how the flight of actual capital (businesses, jobs, local tax base) contributes directly to the loss of social capital. I am still mulling over what look to be direct relationships between different types of local capital - perhaps a future post will feature them more prominently.

This intentional shrinking city phenomenon that is occurring in Youngstown seems, in the long term, to be a possible model for many cities in the Rust Belt. I have several concerns, however:

- The neighborhoods which are to be "gutted," it seems almost obvious, will be the poorest neighborhoods in Youngstown. These are the places where the least tax money is drawn from, these are the places where the smallest amount of political capital will be lost upon destruction. What will happen to the residents of these areas? Assuming that most of them are renters (as are folks in similar neighborhoods in Binghamton), they will not even benefit if Youngstown gains possession of the properties by eminent domain. Where shall they go?

- What type of example is being set here? I may be wrong, but it looks as though this is a patently undemocratic movement. Where did this originate from? Is this a last-ditch effort by an executive official? Presumably, if the voters are dissatisfied with these endeavors, they will vote out the Mayor and his administration, but, as mentioned above, if these people have already been displaced, they probably lack much political capital to begin with - otherwise, why would they have stayed in the worst neighborhoods in town?

These may be unfounded concerns, I recognize this - and I DO commend Youngstown for taking on controversial solutions to national problems. I would very much like to see this work out for the best, but I also do not wish to see a patently anti-poor, undemocratic movement be the answer to our cities' problems.