Planning with justice in mind in a shrinking Baltimore

ABSTRACT

In our 2011 paper, “The Bounds of Smart Decline: A Foundational Theory for Planning Shrinking Cities,” we outline 5 propositions for just planning processes in cities losing population: inclusion, deliberation, recognition, transparency, and scale appropriateness. Each proposition addresses a perceived weakness of planning processes in shrinking cities, and with each we list a set of actions that planners can take in “moving the dial” toward more just outcomes. In this article, we test this theory on what we call Baltimore’s Abandoned Housing Strategy, a series of citywide policy interventions intended to facilitate the productive reuse of vacant and abandoned properties. Through a series of interviews, participant observation, and archival research, we find that although the city’s strategy has laudable goals, city officials manage it in a way that limits the potential for long-lasting community empowerment. We propose that this and similar efforts employ these 5 propositions in evaluating their own smart decline initiatives to help ensure that future processes include voices and concerns that need to be heard most.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the staff from the Baltimore City Planning Department and the efforts of numerous research assistants.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge the financial support of the Abell Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Jeremy Németh

Jeremy Németh is an Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Colorado Denver. His research focuses on issues of urban environmental justice and the politics of public space and his work has been published widely in academic journals of urban studies, design, geography, and urban and regional planning. More information can be found at http://jeremynemeth.com.

Justin B. Hollander

Justin B. Hollander is an Associate Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning and Director of the C.A.G.S. in Urban Justice and Sustainability at Tufts University. His research and teaching is in the areas of shrinking cities, Big Data, brownfields, and the intersection between cognitive science and the design of cities. He is the author of seven books on urban planning and design, most recently An Ordinary City: Planning for Growth and Decline in New Bedford, Massachusetts (Palgrave, 2018) and A Research Agenda for Shrinking Cities (Edward Elgar, 2018).

Eliza D. Whiteman

Eliza D. Whiteman received her PhD from the Department of City & Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Whiteman’s research focuses on food insecurity, urban health disparities, and social policy. She uses a mixed-methods approach to explore spatiotemporal dynamics of food and health across the urban planning, public health, and social welfare disciplines. Ms. Whiteman earned a master of public health from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 and both a master of science in nutrition policy and a master of arts in urban & environmental planning from Tufts University in 2014.

Michael P. Johnson

Michael P. Johnson is Professor in the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs and affiliated faculty in the Urban Planning and Community Development program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on developing decision models and decision support systems to improve operations and strategy design of nonprofit organizations and government agencies. His primary applications focus is on affordable and subsidized housing, community development, and public services. Dr. Johnson has published widely in academic journals of decision science, decision support systems, urban planning, and housing policy. His most recent book is Decision Science for Housing and Community Development: Localized and Evidence-Based Responses to Distressed Housing and Blighted Communities (Wiley, 2016). Dr. Johnson earned his PhD from Northwestern University in operations research in 1997 and his bachelor of science from Morehouse College in 1987.