Youngstown, Ohio has downsized to positive effect. Tearing down homes reduced urban blight while increasing the values of the homes left standing. It's part of Youngstown 2010 plan, described in part in this USA Today article about urban shrinkage around the world:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-26-shrinking-cities-cover_x....

Unless you're George Costanza, shrinkage is a good thing, and perhaps more cities should be thinking in terms of value instead of growth.

I think this is a great idea. Maybe the green space will encourage someone to think of another industry to employ the people still left there and look forward to moving to the created green spaces.

It's really a cost effective way to return balance to the economy. They were built to house a rapidly growing community and now we can remove them to accommodate a rapidly shrinking community.

Parts of this concept are creepy. On the other hand, some cities have entire blocks (even neighborhoods) of abandoned and neglected homes with very little hope of future occupants. It would be nice if there were an opportunity to utilize this dead space.

This question should be more on our minds, and we should--really--come up with more appropriate solutions. The test case is New Orleans, four years(!) after Hurricane Katrina, much of the city is vacant, underinhabited, dangerous, and waiting for the levees to break again.

This is a wonderful idea. One thing that they could do as well is convert the city into a town that is completely "green." It could probably create a different job market for this decaying town.

I'm a resident of Flint and I live downtown in an old historic apartment building. I work as a graduate landscape architect in a local engineering/design firm, which I'm proud to state, is given tremendous credit for committing to move it's headquarters into Flint and anchoring a moderate, but committed revival & redevelopment of the downtown.

I very strongly believe that the concept of 'shrinking' Flint (a horribly unfortunate phrase which at present bares little connection to the work, research, imagination and exhibition of the 'Shrinking Cities Project' www.shrinkingcities.com ) is the best way to leverage the enormous potential that this city has to transform itself and cities like it. Unfortunately, there have been two big mistakes made with the communication of this concept: 1)despite the good intentions of Mr. Kildee and the Land Bank, there's been no effort to engage, educate, discuss or involve the public since this slipped out of the temp. mayor in September of '08, while the Land Bank has used this opportunity to widely and broadly advocate and market this idea to everyone but the local community; and 2) nothing is being done to envision the potential results and so we just get lots of talk about more 'green space' which is something we've already got in spades, so why not discuss this as an opportunity to diversify and intensify economic & residential development in existing areas, maximize and mix uses, increase density, develop large-scale green infrastructure that layers agricultural, ecological, alternative energy, recreational and other uses into compatible landscapes, etc.

Returning parts of Flint to nature isn't enough. This has to be about an intelligent, long-term (50-100 years) strategy for reurbanization of the city, its sustainability, diversity (cultural, economic, etc.), and intensification. There's a wonderful process of engagement taking place at reworking and changing the city's urban farming ordinance (directly involving the Land Bank and I would love to see applied to this 'shrinking' issue) but I see too many folks leaning on this as the asnwer, even though it's not going to resolve the enormous problem of all this left over green space and infrastructure in the city. Urban gardens are a tiny part of a solution-in-the-whole that hasn't even started to be explored as fully as it should.

And Flint unemployment was just posted at 28.6% for the month of June...

Nature, in forests, for example, when things get overgrown, useless or attract things that don't belong in the neighborhood, rejuvenates itself by a forest fire. Humans ought to take a similar approach to get rid of stuff which are debilitating for the health and welfare of the living.

First, no one, including Kildee, has ever advocated bulldozing "entire neighborhoods." I'm also wondering where you got the 40% figure? You should source info like that, but my guess is that you don't have a source. Finally, you talk about the city adopting the "plan." What plan? There's no proposal before the city of Flint for shrinking the city. Kildee has suggested revamping the city's master plan for the first time since the sixties, after input from the citizens of Flint, to have a strategy for shrinking the city. By the way, the city is shrinking anyway as the Land Bank tears down houses. Kildee is simply suggesting that the city do it in a strategic way. Finally, the law does not allow local governments to "buy up" unused land; it allows Land Banks to seize land in tax foreclosure. Did you do any reporting on this? You should run a correction and clarification on all the errors.

I too live in downtown Flint and very much appreciate and agree with Shaun's thoughtful comments (and correcting Flint's official unemployment rate, which, as we know, is an inherently inaccurate way of gauging economic suffering anyway ( http://www.philstockworld.com/2009/07/09/true-unemployment-numbers/ ). This delicate shrinking city issue can very quickly become dangerously divisive if leaders ignore concerns over property rights, eminent domain, class, race, perceived opportunism, favoritism, etc. I like the idea of turning Flint into a model green city – but that requires a lot of coordination, political will, communication and money. One idea that would help move that goal forward would be for the city's 4 main institutions of higher learning to make concerted changes to their curriculum that would train, in a radically more inclusive way, a new generation of the best and brightness in the areas of environmental remediation, sustainable urban planning, alternative energy technology, etc., learning through doing, applying that knowledge and skill to bold, transformative projects for the benefit of the entire community. An initiative on that scale with those aims in mind could once again make Flint a technological mecca – as it was 100 years ago. There are actually studies and proposals along these lines already completed:

http://www.thelandbank.org/Landuseconf/Reimagining_Chevy_in_the_Hole.pdf

Who's up for showing the world what can be done – even in, or especially in, Flint MI?

And I don't know where I got "September '08" from... Mayor Brown didn't take office until February 2009 and made the remarks in March... Sorry about that!

The positive effects that are possible are to numerous to mention. Just a few are new job categories, reduction of urban blight and even the opportunity to redesign the existing city that reduces suburban sprawl and that cities carbon foot print by creating an urban center dedicated to walking and public transport. Now all we have to do is get the egos to see the possibility of a better future instead more of the same. One of the ways to do that would be to heed Mr.Smakal's suggestion and just simply communicate the truth about the project and bring it into a positive light; it's marketing 101 folks....

The positive effects that are possible are to numerous to mention. Just a few are new job categories, reduction of urban blight and even the opportunity to redesign the existing city that reduces suburban sprawl and that cities carbon foot print by creating an urban center dedicated to walking and public transport. Now all we have to do is get the egos to see the possibility of a better future instead more of the same. One of the ways to do that would be to heed Mr.Smakal's suggestion and just simply communicate the truth about the project and bring it into a positive light; it's marketing 101 folks....

This is a great, interesting thought provoking idea.

Jason
Sydney via London

I cannot say enough how much I agree with this. This is one of our main topics at www.newurbanismgroup.com not only demolish these neighborhoods but make the land lords lose their house if they do not keep them to a minimum standard. And there needs to be a park for every 20 houses with the exception to have a park twice as big for every forty ect..

Take parking lots and replant the paradise!

I think this is an excellent idea, especially for bigger cities that have substantial urban decay. It's kind of like a farmer leaving land fallow, to be utilized in a different way in the future.

This is a unique idea, and has merit so long as there is no growth in the city. Potentially it suggests that if a city limits its growth for 'value-centered' reasons, it will have to 'ration' access for those whom it attracts. Many cities have disovered that population growth is unpredictable. If schools, for example, have been closed, they need to reopen with very costly results. If land is returned to nature, those systems that support urban/suburban/village life (water systems, sewage systems, etc)are also left to decay and then must be reinstalled. Unintended consequences need to be factored in to big decisions

@JackAllen "much of the city is vacant, underinhabited, dangerous, and waiting for the levees to break again."

Where do you get this idea, CNN? The 9th Ward is a small area of the city, and even they are rebuilding. Don't be fooled, New Orleans continues to be a vibrant, living city. There are still neighborhoods that are coming back, but much of the city exists as it always has -- except that now there's new construction going on.

We could all use more greenspace, but you have to balance sensationalism in the media (which is why you only hear about the 9th ward, the worst hit) with reality. Nola isn't your test case.

I live in an area where more houses are boarded than not. I think what should happen is every other house be demolished and increase the value of a single home. Give city people a yard to care for and somewhere for them to take pride in their homes again. It would cut the maintenance in half and still leave a nice area for the current owners. Too many drug dealers are taking over boarded homes