Will Milwaukee, like Youngstown, wither? Forum would study how cities thrive
From our friend Dan Knauss in Milwaukee on this recent Journal-Sentinel piece (http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=749831):
This is at least the second time I’ve seen a recent story on Longworth that picks up on a comparison he’s making between a category of cities-that-can-be-saved (Milwaukee is one) and others that are the negative examples, apparently beyond saving or virtually guaranteed to go on in terminal decline. This gets attention, but is it accurate? St. Louis may be barely half as big as it once was, but is it really just a “strange, empty, echoing place?”
If Youngstown, Detroit, Cleveland, etc. really are in the category of those that “truly may not come back,” how do we interpret “may”?
Sounds like Dan should talk to our friends in Buffalo.
I’m just finishing watching the Glaeser discussion video…it’s very good. I didn’t agree with a lot of the things he wrote in City Journal that resulted in this talk, and he didn’t really address those issues. What he did say was often good, the main point being: population growth or decline is not a meaningful measure in itself as a success/failure measure of a city. Someone on the panel brought up Youngstown bulldozing old vacant districts as a good thing if it means downsizing to live within realistic means as a city. Longworth seems to have taken it as a simple sign of failure. It’s a sign of failing to keep doing what Youngstown was doing in the past. Is it a sign of declining quality of life?
Related: “Shrinking Gracefully” by Anthony Armostrong, who is in the panel discussion with Glaeser
http://gluespace.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/shrinking-gracefully-by-anthony-armstrong-buffalo-ny/