Anybody else remember "planned shrinkage"? You can google it.
On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > (Surprise, suprise. This jackass Harvard professor had a regular column on > the NY Sun, a neoconservative weekly that went out of business last year.) > > NY Times March 16, 2010 > Economix - Explaining the Science of Everyday Life > Shrinking Detroit Back to Greatness > By EDWARD L. GLAESER > > Edward L. Glaeser is an economics professor at Harvard. > > Can Detroit shrink to greatness? > > After decades of betting that white elephant projects, like the city’s > monorail, would reverse decline, Detroit’s remarkable mayor, Dave Bing, a > former N.B.A. All-Star and successful steel entrepreneur, has focused on > right-sizing his city and its government. > > At the extreme, urban right-sizing could mean bulldozing large swaths of the > city. Will the benefits of downsizing Detroit outweigh the costs? > > Detroit became a great industrial hub when a city of small entrepreneurs > evolved into the home of the Big Three. Their vast factories provided good > wages to hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans, but over the last 50 > years, areas with abundant small companies have grown more quickly than > places dominated by a few big firms. Skilled cities have also been more > successful than less well-educated places, and only 11 percent of Detroit’s > adults have college degrees. People and companies have moved to warmer > areas, and Detroit can be awfully cold. Industrial diversity has been more > conducive for growth than manufacturing mono-cultures, and Detroit > practically defined the one-industry town. > > Given that Detroit was on the wrong side of history with competition, > education, climate and industrial diversity, it isn’t surprising that the > city’s population fell from over 1.85 million in 1950 to 912,000 in 2008. > > Economic and social headwinds ensured that Detroit would shrink, but public > policies did little to halt the city’s decline. > > Manufacturing jobs have moved disproportionately to right-to-work states, > and Michigan is strongly pro-union. Neither 1960s urban renewal nor the > 1970s Renaissance Center, nor the People Mover nor the Joe Louis Arena nor > General Motors’ Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly, which was built by using eminent > domain to level Poletown, did much to hold Detroit’s population steady. The > city lost at least 150,000 people during every decade from 1950 to 1990. > > The whole idea of saving declining cities by building more is a mistake, > since the hallmark of declining cities is that they have plenty of > infrastructure relative to people. Detroit’s houses sell for a fraction of > the costs of building anything new. The monorail glides over essentially > empty streets. Indeed, there is surely more wisdom in Mayor Bing’s plan to > shrink the city’s footprint than in the light rail system simultaneously > being planned for Detroit. > > But what does it mean to right-size a city? > > As cities lose people and tax revenues decline, it often makes economic > sense to close a public structure, like a school. Kansas City has put > itself in the forefront of this trend by choosing to close 28 of its 61 > schools to meet the reality of declining enrollments and limited funds, > which is a little odd since Kansas City’s population has been quite stable > for two decades. > > Closing schools, or any public facility, is never easy, but it is hard to > argue that a cash-strapped municipality isn’t within its rights if it > chooses to cut costs by reducing the number of public facilities. If a > district closes particularly poorly performing schools, children may end up > getting a better education as a result, albeit at the cost of a longer bus > trip. > > A second strategy, proposed by Mayor Bing, goes beyond closing a few > schools, and eliminates the provision of public services to some parts of a > city. > > Detroit has a large number of communities that are dominated by empty lots > and vacant homes. Mayor Bing has spoken of providing incentives for the > people still living in such areas to relocate, and warned them that “if they > stay where they are I absolutely cannot give them all the services they > require.” > > For a big-city mayor to warn that some areas will be no-service zones is > radical, but our country is filled with less populated areas that lack > public trash removal, bus service and water provision. In a sense, Mayor > Bing would just be treating the least dense areas of Detroit like those > other less dense areas. Of course, one might hope that if Detroit provides > fewer services to some of its homeowners, then he would also cut their > property tax bill. > > The third, and most extreme, approach is to bulldoze buildings and turn them > over to some alternative use, like parks or agriculture. Razing empty, > dilapidated, hazardous structures is fairly uncontroversial, but more > questions must be raised if the mayor is going to forcibly move significant > amounts of people in order to physically reshape large land areas. > > If the residents of largely empty areas aren’t willing to sell and move, > then we are back in the same quandary that always faces large public changes > in urban land use, like the construction of G.M.’s Poletown plant. To what > extent should a city put perceived citywide interests ahead of the wishes of > individual property-owners? > > If removing a largely vacant neighborhood really generates significant > gains, then some sizable fraction of those gains can be given to the > citizens who will have to give up their homes. If generous payments, rather > than eminent domain, are used to move the remaining residents, then > right-sizing can be win-win. > > But if Mayor Bing tries to do too much, too quickly, without giving enough > to the residents who have to move, then right-sizing will justly be seen as > yet another example of the public insensitivity and folly that has > unfortunately marred too many past efforts at dealing with urban distress. > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
