What we talk about when we talk about shrinking cities: The ambiguity of discourse and policy response in the United States: Fid-Bau Portal

What we talk about when we talk about shrinking cities: The ambiguity of discourse and policy response in the United States

Mallach, Alan

Abstract

AbstractAlthough United States cities began to shrink in large numbers as early as the 1950s, the shrinking city discourse was obscured by the overriding “urban crisis” narrative, and did not emerge until much later, in the late the 1990s and 2000s. Rather than trigger national policy change, however, the discourse became the starting point for local action, epitomized in the efforts to address widespread housing abandonment through land banks and greening strategies, spearheaded by an informal alliance of local officials and both local and national sources of expertise, largely outside academia. At the same time, the term ‘shrinking city’ was widely seen as problematic outside scholarly circles, and a major element of the discourse was the ongoing search for acceptable terminology to refer to the class of shrinking cities. In the final analysis, however, the association of growth with success and shrinkage with failure in the urban lexicon remains largely unchallenged.

Highlights•Shrinkage as such was not addressed until long after it had begun, reflecting the dominant ‘urban crisis’ discourse.•Distinct shrinkage discourse and policy focus only emerged in the 1990s after selective urban revival had begun.•Central to the shrinking cities discourse were efforts to talk about the problem that did not use the term ‘shrinkage’.•Policies focused mainly on vacant properties, leading to key policy innovations, such as land banking and urban greening.•Policy responses were bottom-up efforts from the local level, with limited engagement either by state or federal agencies.