The bounds of smart decline: a foundational theory for planning shrinking cities

Abstract

Economic decline has led to a new wave of population decline throughout the US, meaning more and more cities are shrinking. Growing interest in using smart decline principles to respond to shrinkage has been met with controversy in cities such as Detroit and Cleveland. This paper advances a foundational theory of smart decline that takes as its starting point discussions of ethics, equity, and social justice in the planning and political theory literature, but is well grounded in observations of successful smart decline practice.

Keywords:

• abandoned property
• land use/zoning
• vacant land

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Erratum

Acknowledgements

Partial funding for this research was provided by University of Colorado Denver's Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER).

Notes

¹While there are differences between a city losing population and housing units over three years and the kind of prolonged population and economic loss experienced by cities such as Detroit, Manchester, and Leipzig over decades, the basic physical processes and policy responses have much in common.

²Here we define “top-down” as any policies or plans that originate and are implemented from political and administrative leadership within a city government. This approach is in contrast to “bottom-up” policies that come from grassroots organizations or neighborhood groups with implementation duties shared across governmental and non-governmental organizations.

³Mr. Williams later became mayor of Youngstown.

⁴Details of this case are widely available but are drawn principally from Fainstein (2010) and Brindley et al. (1996).