In the summer of 2017, Greater Ohio Policy Center ran a blog series on shrinking cities – or communities that have experienced significant population decline. The blog series summarizes academic books and articles that explore how U.S. cities can manage the many consequences of population decline.
The site has two topic areas that might be of interest to people who are working on community or strategic planning in smaller legacy cities:
“Planning in America’s Legacy Cities: Toward Better, Smaller Communities after Decline,” by Margaret Dewar and Hunter Morrison, explores the unique challenges facing planners in cities with declining populations. This paper appears as a chapter in the volume Rebuilding America’s Legacy Cities: New Directions for the Industrial Heartland, which was edited Alan Mallach and published by the American Assembly.
One advantage of living in the modern-era is the sheer amount of data available to individuals making decisions. Data can be used by leaders to make informed decisions on how best to distribute resources to projects.
Historically, many smaller legacy cities were heavily dependent on one or two industries and lacked a diversified economy. As a result, when those industries left or went out of business, the cities that depended on them so heavily fell into hard times.
In smaller legacy cities, resources are often scare and not all competing visions can be implemented successfully. But due to their smaller size, there is also greater opportunity for community-wide consensus-building about the city’s future. This shared vision requires a robust and inclusive planning process that takes into account the interests and concerns of all stakeholders.