Reinventing Cities

"Shrinking Cities" by Witold Rybczynski and Peter Linneman, in Wharton Real Estate Review (Fall 1997), Wharton Real Estate Center, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 313 Lauder-Fischer Hall, Third Floor, 256 S. 37th St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19104–6330.

America’s aging big cities need to accept the fact that they are shrinking, and set about planning to make smaller better. So contend Rybczynski and Linneman, professors of real estate and urbanism, and of real estate, finance and public policy, respectively, at the University of Pennsylvania.

The usual response of urban areas faced with a declining (and increasingly poor) population, the authors say, has been to raise taxes, thus making the city even less attractive. Another oft-proposed solution—regional government—is politically impractical, even leaving aside probable constitutional difficulties.

Mayors and urban planners should emulate Venice, Vienna, and Glasgow, Rybczynski and Linneman maintain. Though their populations peaked long ago (in the 17th century, in the case of Venice), they are still good places to live. "A city that has irretrievably lost large amounts of its population," say the authors, "needs to examine ways to redesign itself to become more compact, and perhaps even smaller in area."

Many cities have strong outlying parts, and some have strong centers, they note.

"Between these areas lies a complex web of decrepit housing stock, abandoned industry, and strong neighborhoods." What can be done? In some cases, they suggest, empty tracts could be turned into parks and recreation areas. New York City, owner of 20,000 vacant lots, is considering asking private corporations to pay for converting empty land into parks and playgrounds, in return for the right to use the space for advertising. Some vacant land may have commercial possibilities. In downtown Chicago, a developer recently built a golf course on 30 vacant acres near the convention center. Or perhaps large tracts could be consolidated and sold to the U.S. Department of the Interior for the creation of urban greenbelts. Another, more drastic idea: selling large tracts (of, say, 100-plus acres) to private developers to create independent "suburban" municipalities, with their own schools and governments.

Rybczynski and Linneman concede that significant reforms will provoke massive resistance. But for New York and other "shrinking cities," they believe, there is no realistic alternative.