"Smart shrinkage," or land banking, is a big part of the solution to the problems of many old, fading industrial cities, according to Bruce Fisher in a cover story in Buffalo's Artworks weekly. The piece examines the fate of several Great Lakes cities after their once thriving industries left, and contrasts the amount of tax money being spent on revival efforts with the result: continuing declines in population. The thesis is we can't build or buy our way to prosperity, but we may be able to manage a revival through enlightened planning and leadership.
The article raises the issue of purposefully abandoning some sections of inner cities, mothballing them in favor of concentration on neighborhoods that are currently viable, until the population and tax base rebound.
The common thread among the shrinking cities of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan is that "the problems are all the same -- sprawl without growth, population loss, mass abandonment of housing, growing dependency, de-industrialization, and of course the racial isolation within old city boundaries," according to Professor Fisher.
Read the entire Artworks article here.
