Planning for contraction

Have you driven a Ford lately? Caption: Scrap dealer Vernon Mills pledged he would not "miss out on a good deal" as he hauled away what's left of Detroit's East Side. Photo copyright The Onion.

A colleague and I discuss what we call the "planning for contraction," or the reverse of sprawl, because of the likely reduction of access to oil, either because of diminishing oil resources (Peak Oil) or because of increased demands from countries (China especially but also India) which have 4-6 times the population of the U.S. -- the U.S. consumes 25% of all the world's oil resources at present.

Then, cities, particularly in the midwest, or the upper tier of the United States (such as upstate New York) are shrinking. Places like Niagara Falls, New York and Youngstown, Ohio have active shrinkage programs.

Almost 1/3 of the City of Detroit is vacant land...

So the humor publication The Onion has stepped in with an idea for Detroit, in the article "Detroit Sold for Scrap."

Now I think The Onion might have something here, sad enough to say, as an ex-Detroiter, because the conditions that will lead to growth of center cities along the East and West Coasts are not present in the midwest--other than a reduction in access to oil, cities like St. Louis, Detroit, and Cleveland are on a downward spiral, until exurban sprawl and continued deconcentration can be halted.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization