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This chapter provides an overview of issues concerning social equity in the siting of affordable housing in US shrinking cities. It begins with a discussion of US shrinking cities in the context of globalization. This discussion highlights how the sustained decline of older industrial cities in the US is the by-product of their increased integration into the global economy. After establishing this foundation, the chapter turns to a discussion of the shift from an urban growth paradigm to one based on rightsizing in US shrinking cities. This discussion argues that globalization has led to the replacement of urban growth regimes in shrinking cities with rightsizing regimes led by hospitals, universities, and other non-profit anchor institutions. The chapter then examines emerging equity issues associated with rightsizing in US shrinking cities. There is a specific focus on the implications of rightsizing for minority and low-income residents of inner-city neighbourhoods. This discussion identifies the preservation and development of affordable housing as a linchpin for equitable anchor-based urban revitalization. In addition to identifying the provision of affordable housing as an essential ingredient in equitable anchor-based strategies, emerging tools for siting affordable housing are examined.

This chapter highlights the remarkable urbanisation of the planet, the growth of multicultural cities and the rise of place-less power. It provides data on world population growth, discusses trends relating to global urbanisation, and presents maps showing where urban expansion can be expected to occur in the coming period. Different aspects of urbanisation are covered including: the growth in the number of megacities; the existence of shrinking cities; the reasons why very large numbers of people are moving to cities; a discussion of who are the urban migrants; and consideration of the nature of dynamic diversity in the modern city. The discussion highlights the fact that cities are bound to become much more multicultural in the years ahead. The chapter notes that the extraordinary movement of people to cities is still not well understood and offers insights on why so many people are moving to cities.

This chapter discusses current urban land use (form, size, and shape of cities and urban areas) against a global background. The specifics of urban land use (surface characteristics, dynamics of change, impacts on the environment) are examined using different conceptual approaches (e.g., ecosystem services, risk, and governance aspects). Although urban land use is a special case (i.e., small in scale, yet dominant in influence), a range of commonalities exist between urban and nonurban land use. A discussion on shrinking cities underlines that there are more pathways to urban land development than growth. The current extent and rates of urbanization force us to rethink land connectivity, competition, and decision making; the resulting knowledge can be used to generate a new concept of land use. The connections and implications of urban land-use patterns need to be examined on a global scale, as local-scale patterns may be affected by global-scale outcomes and vice versa. Published in the Strungmann Forum Reports Series.

The deindustrialization of Flint made cynics out of all but the most optimistic Vehicle City boosters. Nevertheless, many civic leaders remained hopeful about the city’s fate and rejected the notion that Flint was suffering from urban decline and corporate abandonment. Echoing their counterparts in other metropolises, Flint’s indefatigable boosters have waged vigorous campaigns to revitalize the shrinking city. Like the Sunbelt boosters of old, members of the city’s growth machine have marketed Flint as a low-wage haven with a weakened trade union movement and a municipal government committed to business growth. As in the postwar era, however, these urban renewal efforts have generated only mixed outcomes. In the downtown business district, a number of new businesses and residential developments took shape in the new millennium. However, those new developments produced the first signs of gentrification in the city’s urban core. In addition, the new attractions generated only minimal economic development in the city’s impoverished and segregated neighborhoods. Despite the numerous revitalization efforts that had taken place since the early twentieth century, the Flint of the new millennium remained a city marred by its staggeringly high rates of poverty, unemployment, residential and school segregation, crime, and urban blight.