page_title: Municipal disinvestment
section_title: "Shrink to survive"
hierarchical_section_title: Municipal disinvestment / "Shrink to survive"
caption_attribution_description: English: Delray, Detroit MI
context_page_description: Municipal disinvestment is a term in the United States which describes an urban planning process in which a city or town or other municipal entity decides to abandon or neglect an area. It can happen when a municipality is in a period of economic prosperity and sees that its poorest and most blighted communities are both the cheapest targets for revitalization as well as the areas with the greatest potential for improvement. It is when a city is facing urban decay and chooses to allocate fewer resources to the poorest communities or communities with less political power, and disenfranchised neighborhoods are slated for demolition, relocation, and eventual replacement. Disinvestment in urban and suburban communities tends to fall strongly along racial and class lines and may perpetuate the cycle of poverty exerted upon the space, since more affluent individuals with social mobility can more easily leave disenfranchised areas.
context_section_description: "Shrink to survive" is a contemporary form of planned shrinkage which emphasizes short-term razing of the city: Where a city enacting planned shrinkage policies takes a Laissez-faire approach to disinvesting in its communities, cities can take an active role in that reduction. This includes investing in more aggressive land buyback and enforcement of eminent domain in order to obtain ownership of a property, relocate its residents, and demolish it. 
  Such proposals, which began around 2009, entail razing entire districts within some cities or else bulldozing them to return the land to its pre-construction rural state. The policies have been studied not only by municipal and state authorities but also by the federal government, and may affect dozens of declining cities in the United States. One report suggested that 50 U.S. cities were potential candidates, and include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis. Proponents claim the plan will bring efficiency with less waste and fraud; detractors complain the policy has been a "disaster" and advocate for community-based efforts instead.
caption: Shrink to survive is used in cities with a large number of abandoned buildings, such as this home in Detroit.
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