urbanOut

When Greg first asked me to write a guest post on the shrinking city concept, my mind began furiously developing ideas to the point where it was overwhelming; this is primarily because I was attending Youngstown State University when the development of Youngstown 2010 was underway, and I was fortunate enough to witness the planning process first hand.  It was nothing like I had ever seen before.  The enthusiasm and excitement for a new comprehensive plan was electric; you could feel it in the atmosphere.  As I reflected on my experiences, I realized what the key to Youngstown’s success was: community engagement. Why am I just now realizing this if I witnessed the process, you may ask.  Reading about the increasing frustration in Detroit put everything in perspective for me.  While I was at YSU, I just thought that Youngstown was going through the motions when it came to the visioning and comprehensive planning process; little did I know that barriers to acceptance were being broken.

Prior to Youngstown 2010, the mindset was that Youngstown needed to be saved by some knight in shining armor, whether that knight came in the form of a new factory or some other large employment center, it didn’t matter; the city was going to wait for it.  And it did, for over thirty years.  Consequently, the city began to decline as it waited.  Residents migrated out of the Mahoning Valley as jobs became harder to come by, which, coupled with a multitude of other factors, resulted in an increase in vacant and abandoned property.  Soon the city that was once projected to reach 250,000 residents was around 80,000 residents, leaving blocks upon blocks of neighborhoods empty; the city was built out beyond its means.  Questions about how to deal with underutilized infrastructure and decaying neighborhoods forced civic and non-profit leaders to rethink how the city should be planned for the future; it was apparent that the existing comprehensive plan, which was last updated in the 1970s, wasn’t going to answer their questions.  So the city embarked on developing a new comprehensive plan.

Over 150 community leaders took part in the visioning process; for a city of Youngstown’s size, that was impressive.  What was even more impressive was the number of residents that came out to learn about the vision and eventually become involved– over 1,400 residents volunteered in some capacity throughout the development process.  This was a result of an extensive public outreach campaign.  Led by a volunteer group of residents, the campaign encouraged fellow Youngstownites to make their voices heard by attending neighborhood committee meetings, talking to neighbors about getting involved, putting the “You” back in Youngstown.  Contributing to the development of the city’s new comprehensive plan broke through the “Save us!” mentality; the city had come to accept the fact that it would not be the size that it was originally intended to be and a feeling of empowerment and ownership emerged.

I’m a strong believer in community ownership, and a community is more likely to take ownership of a plan if they are involved in the process.  From the beginning, leaders said they wanted public involvement in the visioning and planning process.  They held true to their word; the discussions from the neighborhood meetings and focus groups became the foundation of the comprehensive plan.  A select few may have written the final document, but residents provided the framework for it.  The sense of community ownership was evident when over 1,300 residents showed up for the formal presentation of the plan in 2005 and residents overwhelmingly approved a city charter amendment that says the city must reassess the plan every 10 years after the Census….by 74 percent.  A local resident in this APA video sums it up best: “I want to see things get better and if I want to see things get better than I have to make the change. If I’m not part of the solution, then I’m a part of the problem.”  That says community ownership to me.

Community engagement is only one component of the comprehensive planning process but it is one of the most important, as evidenced by Youngstown and Youngstown 2010; involving the community from the beginning made the idea of shrinking easier to accept.  Everyone needs to remember that shrinkage is not just a physical concept but it is also mental and emotional.  The idea of being forced out of your home because a city plan says that your neighborhood is no longer a high priority would not be easy for anyone to accept.  Utilizing a grassroots approach to conduct an extensive public outreach and education campaign will help loosen the tension as transparency is created; residents will be more inclined to participate if they feel as if all of the information is available for them to see.  Community ownership will only be cultivated if the leadership remains true to their word. 

Youngstown and Detroit aren’t that much different from each.  Granted that Detroit may be four times larger than Youngstown, the problems they are facing are the same: substantial population loss, a weakened economy, significant amounts of vacant and abandoned properties… you get the picture.  Youngstown 2010 may not be built on the most complex principles and tenets; they are simple and straightforward, but most importantly, they are a reflection of the city’s commitment to change.  I hope that Youngstown’s efforts can serve as an example of how community engagement can dramatically help a city undergo the shrinking/rightsizing process.

Originally from the Youngstown-Warren, Ohio metropolitan region, Sarah M. Wilson is a professional planner with economic development experience in the non-profit sector. She holds a Master of Community Planning from the University of Cincinnati and B.A. in Political Science from Youngstown State University. She currently works as the Assistant to the President at the Metropolitan Planning Council in Chicago, IL and continues to pursue her goal of working as an economic development specialist in the non-profit sector.