The article states Youngstown's 'approach is controversial.'
YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown 2010 citywide plan that includes controlled shrinkage of the city was featured in a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal.
This is the latest national publication to focus on the economic revitalization plan that focuses on demolishing abandoned and dilapidated structures in the city and replacing them with green space. The article ran Thursday.
The plan received praise as one of the 74 best ideas in an article in The New York Times Magazine, and has also been featured in USA Today as well as Metropolis and Governing magazines.
The plan has won a number of state and national awards including the American Planning Association's 2007 National Planning Excellence Award for Public Outreach.
The Journal states talk by Youngstown officials about embracing more open space and accepting the reality that the city's population is going to shrink "would be considered blasphemy in most cities."
How plan differs
Officials in most urban cities are taught to promote growth and development and fight population decline, and Youngstown's "approach is controversial," according to the article.
Mayor Jay Williams is quoted in the article saying: "The concept of trying to grow out of economic malaise is just not realistic for us."
Though the article is about the city's implementation of Youngstown 2010, the plan is never mentioned by name.
The city held 11 neighborhood meetings in 2004 to help shape the plan with about 5,000 people participating in the process. City council officially adopted the plan last year.
To date, the most significant aspect of the plan to be implemented is the demolition of abandoned structures. The city razed 400 buildings, most of them residential houses, last year and plans to take down about the same number this year.