SMART DECLINE
Vs
SMART MOVE
The
story about Detroit’s economic decline and Shrinkage
was raised by ‘Alex Altman’ the Washington
correspondent for ‘TIME’. Altman
is the one who predicted the GM failure in 2008 (years before happening) by his
famous article “Corporate Layoffs: The Worst is yet to come”.
In 2009 he had
more to say;
He raised the
idea of city shrinkage phenomenon in Detroit. The
article named “Detroit tries to get on a road to renewal” and tailed by a photo of Detroit’s suburb. This photo later
became an iconic portrait of the “Depopulation Phenomenon” in the States.
The
idea, was followed by many scholars in different routes; urban spatial,
economics, social justice, or even politics.
To Paul
Krugman, the Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, urban
reduction is not a matter of “Decline”, yet, he translates the idea of city
shrinkage into ‘Smart Move’. He says, ideas move, then money moves, then
people.
Just drawing a comparison between
the size of the US Auto industry between ‘1900-1970’ and the same thing in ‘2010’
will clearly depict the idea behind the city shrinkage. The U.S. main goal is
changed. Providing “know-What” in early 20th century brought a huge
amount of financial resources. However, in past years, many booming economics
such as India, China or even Brazil, relied on their cheap labor force and made
the competition hard for U.S.
Consequently, U.S shifted its
industry to “know-how”.
Rather than providing goods, they
are more interested to provide the knowledge of production. A great example
would be Silicon Valley in San Jose, CA (or Austin, TX). Inevitably, there was
a shift in labor-based industries since the hub of production was not any
longer in the US. Instead, the e-hubs are defined, hosted and boomed in many
parts of the Stases.
I did a small experimental research
as follows that I believe could be interesting;
The price quote of 20ft U-Haul rental truck
from Detroit to Austin and the same thing in opposite direction are questioned.
Both items have the same millage,
the same criteria and the same nodes, but in different directions. The price
from Detroit to Austin is 1600 $ and the opposite direction is 450 $. It shows
the economic shift from manufacture-based industries to e-based sections.
In short, the city shrinkage phenomenon
has no correlation with financial crisis,
ethics, equity, or even social justice. It
is just a matter of movement. Rusk the
author of “Cities without
Suburbs” argues “When a city stops growing, it starts shrinking; there is no
zero growth rate”. Hence, by moving the ideas, money and population also move.
Endnotes;
- Altman, A. 2009. Detroit tries to
get on a road to renewal
- Hall, Peter. 1997. Modeling the post-industrial
city
- Harvey, D. 1996. Justice, nature
and the geography of difference. London: Blackwell.
- Hollander, J. 2009.Polluted and
dangerous: America’s worst abandoned properties and what can
be done about them. Burlington
- Hollander, J., and F. Popper.
2007. Planning practice and the shrinking city
- Jackson, Kenneth T. 1985.
Crabgrass frontier: the suburbanization of the United States.
- Mayer, H., and M. Greenberg.
2001. Coming back from economic despair: Case studies
of small and medium-size American
places
- Mouffe,
C. 1996. Democracy, power and the ‘‘political’’. In Democracy and difference:
Contesting the boundaries of the
political
- Popper, D.E., and F.J. Popper.
2002. Small can be beautiful
- Safford,
Sean. 2009.Why the Garden Club couldn’t Save Youngstown
- Sandercock, L. 1998. Towards
Cosmopolis: Planning for multicultural cities.
- Shrinking cities? A comparison of
recent planning exercises in Sudbury
- Schulman, Bruce, J. 1994. From
Cotton Belt to Sunbelt
- Capitalism, socialism and
democracy. New York: Harper.
- Vergara, C.J. 1995. The new
American ghetto. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
- Wiechmann, T. 2008. Errors
expected – aligning urban strategy with demographic uncertainty
in shrinking cities.
International Planning Studies
- Wolin, S. 1996. Fugitive
democracy. In Democracy and difference
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