Decline is the New Growth (?)

In an earlier post, I linked to stories about "shrinking cities" or "smart decline" covered in Governing magazine and USA Today (as posted on Smart City Memphis). The shrinking cities movement seems to be growing, garnering more coverage on last Sunday's Smart City Radio show. Click here to listen to the show, which includes an interview with Youngstown, Ohio Mayor, Jay Williams.

I can see how such a paradigm could be appealing to a lot of people: In my former role as a planner for a city with a declining population, I was often frustrated with the planning profession's seemingly endless focus on dealing with growth. A focus on dealing with decline would be refreshing.

But, I wonder whether a shrinking cities movement really is the next big thing. In fact, I wonder whether the movement really is something new, or just a new package for old ideas. Mostly, I wonder whether shrinking cities strategies (accepting a smaller population as inevitable/irreversible and adjusting accordingly) could work in cities where the real decline has been confined to the central city, while the suburbs have continued to grow. There are many cities that have lost population in recent decades, but almost all of them are surrounding by growing suburban counties. Youngstown is in rare company as a city who's broader metropoliation area experieneced overall population loss between 1990 and 2000. (Of the 280 MSAs, only 24 lost population between 1990 and 2000.) Can a struggling city surrounding by more vibrant counties really adopt a strategy of accepting it's populaiton decline, or are these strategies only appropriate for Youngstown and the 23 other shrinking MSAs?

By the way, for an international perspective on shrinking cities, check out www.shrinkingcities.com. Interesting stuff. This is a project of the Federal Cultural Foundation, the Leipzig Gallery of Contemporary Art, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, and the magazine archplus. It's very German.