City’s planners debate right-sizing in the NYT

Most urban planners work to grow cities — the odd challenge, here, writes the New York Times, is that our planners are charged to do the opposite. This latest article on the Detroit Works Project talks to Marja M. Winters, deputy director of the city’s planning and development department. From mapping and calculating to meeting with the community and dispelling rumors (one, that neighborhoods will simply be shut down), it’s a rare look into the daily life and challenges of a planner in Detroit.

Excerpt:

Though the city will offer some kind of incentives for people in
miserable neighborhoods to move, no neighborhood will be simply shut
down, she said. A place deemed not worthy of new residential investment
might see subtle shifts: services like garbage pickup, she said, could
slow to every 12 days from once a week. “We want to reduce the city’s cost of delivering services, but we also
want to support a baseline quality of life — the key is how do we
balance that out?” Ms. Winters said.

Read the rest of the article here.