#urban evolution

Urban Evolution

As the Simic released more of their krasis experiments, they required new habitats, always at the expense of the locals.

Urban Evolution (Gatecrash) - Eytan Zana

“A community never wants to be known as a “shrinking city” these days, no matter what the numbers say about how many people have moved away and how many old factories or homes are vacant, weeds and trash having taken over properties that once marked important industrial centers.

“Although most US cities in that predicament have gone to great lengths to avoid admitting shrinkage publicly, with many branding themselves as “legacy cities”, some have taken innovative steps to accept the new reality: that they will never return to their former glory and need to adapt to their smaller size.

“’We cannot go back to where we were,' said Ivonne Audirac, an associate professor of planning and landscape architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington who has studied shrinking cities. 'Let’s accept that.’”

(continued at the link above)

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Only a couple of days ago I shared links about Kingston, New York and its plan to reinvent its downtown core.  It’s not hard to find cities of all sizes faced with similar situations.  Although the problems seem to center in the northeast US and in the Rust Belt, cities outside those regions have smilar challenges too.  Certainly a big part of the problem is an ongoing population loss to surrounding suburbs.  Some cities, in Texas for example, have simply annexed their suburbs and maintained their population level and residential tax base.  But they’re the exceptions, by far.

I recently read a book called Reimagining Detroit by local journalist John Gallagher.  Subtitled “Opportunities for Redefining an American City“ it turned out to be a very interesting & informative look at ways cities have addressed consequences of shrinking population to make themselves into something new.

Urban Evolution

As the Simic released more of their krasis experiments, they required new habitats, always at the expense of the locals.

Urban Evolution

As the Simic released more of their krasis experiments, they required new habitats, always at the expense of the locals.