Should the city of Buffalo think smaller?
While most cities plot a planning and development strategy that promises growth, Youngstown is doing just the opposite.
The Ohio city is planning to get smaller, not bigger, and do it intelligently.
A former steel town like Buffalo, Youngstown has adopted a plan that acknowledges its decline and accepts the notion that it will be a smaller but better city.
What that means on the street is a land use plan that encourages investment in some neighborhoods while discouraging it in others. And with that comes an expectation that some neighborhoods might not be around in 20 or 30 years.
One of the primary forces behind this strategy, Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams, has been lauded as a courageous politician, an elected official with the moxie to accept and make the best of his city's fate.
Would Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown be wise to follow Williams' lead? Or is Buffalo right to expect population growth in the years to come?
- Phil Fairbanks
