University of Cincinnati

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:___________________ I, _________________________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in: It is entitled: This work and its defense approved by: Chair: _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ Creative Shrinkage: In Search of a Strategy to Manage Decline A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF COMMUNITY PLANNING In the School of Planning of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning By LI SUN ALLIGOOD Bachelor of Arts, Community Development Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, March 2001 Committee Chair: Menelaos Triantafillou, AICP, ASLA Committee Member: David Varady, PhD, FAICP Abstract Post-industrial cities in the Rust Belt of the United States have been losing population to their suburbs and other regions for decades. Even as the population and density of these cities de- crease, the infrastructure and physical area—and the cost to maintain them—remain the same. A new concept known as “Creative Shrinkage” calls for planning proactively for the possible or likely population shrinkage of a city by adjusting its physical size to its reduced population. This study explores the causes of urban growth and decline in Youngstown, Ohio and Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania and compares Pittsburgh’s conventional responses with the unconventional “Creative Shrinkage” responses adopted by Youngstown, and determines that Creative Shrink- age as utilized in Youngstown has several standard components that allow for its use as a strategy for declining cities. The study suggests a new federal program to assist declining cities with shrinkage and calls for a shrinkage-oriented planning model. ii iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my husband, Shawn Miller, for supporting me emotionally and financially throughout my graduate studies; my parents, Paula and Robert Kuehn, for their encourage- ment; and my sister, Tahroma Skugrud, for sharing thoughts and notes on the thesis process throughout. I would like to thank Professor Menelaos Triantafillou and Dr. David Varady for their willingness to share their time and knowledge, and the guidance and editing assistance they provided. iv Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................1 Research Questions ................................................................................................3 Definition of Terms ................................................................................................4 The Organic City ....................................................................................................6 Review of the Literature ...............................................................................................6 The Growth Model in the United States ...................................................................8 A History of Urban Shrinkage ..................................................................................9 Community Responses to Urban Decline ............................................................... 11 Federal Responses to Urban Decline ...................................................................... 19 Summary .............................................................................................................25 Methodology .............................................................................................................27 Case Studies ............................................................................................................30 Youngstown ........................................................................................................ 30 Pittsburgh ............................................................................................................37 Content Analysis .......................................................................................................47 Youngstown ........................................................................................................ 47 Pittsburgh ............................................................................................................50 Summary .............................................................................................................52 Evaluation and Recommendations ..............................................................................54 Evaluation ........................................................................................................... 54 Recommendations ................................................................................................ 58 Conclusions ..............................................................................................................64 Bibliography .............................................................................................................66 Appendix 1. Shrinking Cities .......................................................................................73 Appendix 2. Youngstown 2010 Maps ...........................................................................74 Appendix 3: Content Analysis Data .............................................................................80 Appendix 4. Census 2000 Demographics .....................................................................85 v Table of Figures Figure 1. The Growth Model in the United States .........................................................10 Figure 3. New York’s campaign .................................................................................17 Figure 4. “Glasgow’s Miles Better” ............................................................................17 Figure 3. Community responses to urban decline .........................................................19 Figure 6. Clearing an urban renewal area ...................................................................24 Figure 5. Summary of federal government programs ....................................................26 Figure 7. Population decline in Youngstown and Pittsburgh since 1950 ..........................30 Figure 8. Coverage of Youngstown in the local paper in 2007 .......................................48 Figure 9. Coverage of Youngstown in the New York Times ............................................49 Figure 10. Coverage of Pittsburgh term “population” in the local paper ........................51 Figure 11. Coverage of Pittsburgh in the New York Times .............................................52 Figure 12. Youngstown Current Zoning .......................................................................74 Figure 13. Youngstown Future Land Use .....................................................................75 Figure 14. Youngstown Future Recreational/Open Space/Agricultural Land Use ..............76 Figure 15. Youngstown Future Industrial Land Use ......................................................77 Figure 16. Youngstown Future Residential Land Use ....................................................78 Figure 17. Youngstown Future Business Land Use ........................................................79 vi Introduction Youngstown, Ohio was once the center of the thriving industrial region of Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. With Pittsburgh, it formed the heart of the national steel manufacturing industry. In the 1950s, Youngstown was Ohio’s seventh largest city and the 57th largest city in the United States (Swope 2006). The 1960s brought many changes to Youngstown and other Midwestern and Northeastern cities. The substantial loss of industrial jobs, and the residents that had depended on them for a living, halved the population of Youngstown—from 168,000 at its height in 1950 to 80,000 today. Youngstown became better known for its mob ties, corrupt politicians, and new federal prisons than for its steel production. Today, things are changing yet again. Since the adoption of the Youngstown 2010 plan in 2005, Youngstown has become the darling of the planning world. The Youngstown 2010 plan has struck a chord—the city’s young mayor, Jay Williams, is fielding calls from officials all over the United States asking how they can create a plan of their own (Lanks 2006). Tellingly, one of the four major vision principles of the plan is “Improving Youngstown’s image and enhancing quality of life” (emphasis added). What makes the Youngstown 2010 plan special? It is not a plan for growth; rather, it is a plan for reducing the infrastructure of the city and targeting future development and investment to better meet the needs of its remaining 80,000 residents. The theme of the plan is to make Youngstown “clean and green” (City of Youngstown 2004), with green infrastructure—consist- ing of natural areas, parks, and recreation trails—replacing abandoned and deteriorated physical structures. The concept is so radical because in the United States, bigger is better; however, in the case of Youngstown, the city has chosen to accept—even embrace—its new smaller size. Youngstown is hardly alone in dealing with the phenomena of population loss and shrinking 1 economic resources. Post-industrial cities in the Rust Belt of the United States have been losing population to their suburbs and other regions for decades (Oswalt

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