Shrinking Cities Institute Kicks Off This Fall
With Charrette and Forum
(CUDC Quarterly 4:2 - Summer 2005)
Continuous growth and development are key priorities for most American cities. But many cities in Ohio have lost population in the last 50 years. While the rate of decline has slowed in recent years, dramatic new growth is far from inevitable, since changes in the global marketplace have altered regional economies and urban sprawl has left behind vast vacancies and distressed neighborhoods in core cities. It may well be time to envision a future for some Ohio cities that is smaller and smarter, rather than bigger and better.
To examine the issues raised by urban shrinkage and put Northeast Ohio’s challenges in a larger context, the CUDC is embarking on an ongoing Shrinking Cities Institute. Using resources from the graduate program in urban design and the practice of the UDC, this program of research and public discussion will examine more sustainable approaches to development and explore the idea of planned shrinkage as an alternative to the quest for continuous growth. This alternative model could include the demolition or dismantling of under-utilized housing and other building stock, the removal of redundant streets, and downsizing of municipal infrastructure to correspond to declining population. Once unneeded components of the built environment are removed, opportunities may arise for restoring native landscape ecologies and reconstituting a new kind of city, where pockets of development are surrounded and connected by natural areas. Planned shrinkage can identify opportunities to establish lively and attractive development clusters that take advantage of the best the region has to offer, while improving air and water quality, enhancing wildlife habitat, and establishing exciting new recreation opportunities.
The Shrinking Cities Institute will begin this fall with two related components: a community design charrette and a public forum. In the charrette, a team of students, faculty and staff from the CUDC will work in Youngstown’s Oak Hill neighborhood, a site with a striking topography and numerous assets that has nevertheless experienced significant population loss and economic decline. This will provide a chance to test some of the theoretical propositions associated with the emerging field of landscape urbanism. Thanks to grants from NAIOP (National Association of Industrial and Office Properties) and the Raymond John Wean Foundation, along with additional funding from the Northeast Ohio Research Consortium and funds from the charrette endowment established by 4M Company, we will also be able to invite planners and landscape architects from other parts of the country to participate in the charrette.
The location for the charrette was chosen partly based on the intrinsic characteristics of the site and partly because planning for a smaller population is an expressed goal of the ongoing Youngstown 2010 planning process (reviewed in the last issue of the Quarterly). Youngstown is an ideal site for the experimental approach that is essential if the Shrinking Cities Institute is to develop practice-tested research into new planning and design ideas.
The charrette, scheduled for October 1-3, will culminate in a community presentation to discuss the ideas generated over the weekend. A charrette report, detailing design concepts and recommendations, will be prepared during October.
Following the charrette, the UDC and Cleveland State University will convene a one-day Shrinking Cities Forum (October 14) at CSU’s Levin College of Urban Affairs. The program will also include a presentation of design ideas from the charrette to ground the conceptual thinking about shrinkage in a specific local context. In addition, invited speakers will provide insights into how other places are beginning to think about population decline and its impact on city form. Among the speakers confirmed for the forum are Frank Popper of Rutgers University, a member of American Planning Association Board of Directors who has been studying shrinking cities nationwide. The design disciplines will be represented by Shane Coen, whose Minneapolis-based practice in landscape urbanism specializes in using the natural history of sites as the basis for adaptive design and development strategies. Look for a complete roster on the CUDC web site in August.
The charrette and forum will be featured in the next issue of the Quarterly. We hope to make the results available nationally and internationally, as well. Based on the results, we will organize further activities in the Shrinking Cities Institute, including collaborations with the urban design and landscape faculties at Dresden University of Technology, which is in a region experiencing transformations analogous to those affecting the industrial centers of Ohio.
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