The Freep's John Gallagher has 10 tips for right-sizing

Last week we published a large report on rightsizing Detroit by looking through the eyes of Youngstown. A lot of what we covered is in this article by the Free Press. But these points are bulleted. And that always gets attention. So, check out what the Freep's John Gallagher has listed for Detroit to pay attention to.

The first two points from the Detroit Free Press article:

1. Stop calling it "downsizing."

Nobody is talking about shrinking Detroit's city limits.

Nobody is saying Detroit won't remain at 139 square miles.

And downsizing just sounds bad. Call it "rightsizing" or "regenerating." Drop "downsizing" from the debate.

2. Never try to forcibly relocate residents.

Detroiters share painful memories of the urban renewal battles of the 1950s, when neighborhoods were bulldozed in the name of progress. Just last month, the Rev. Horace Sheffield III referred to Mayor Dave Bing's downsizing plans as "ethnic cleansing."

Even relocating residents voluntarily through incentives and buying out existing homes could prove troublesome, says Terry Schwarz, director of the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative at Kent State University in Ohio. "Whenever planners and policy makers decide to make big moves, history tells us that we make big mistakes," she says.

So any decisions on neighborhood policy must involve local residents, says Dan Kildee, the former Genesee County treasurer who now heads the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Community Progress that works with distressed cities.

"There's got to be a serious degree of public participation," he says. "It's important that those voices not be dismissed as uninformed, but that they be engaged."

Read the entire article here.