Reimagining Detroit Case Study

The reimagining process of old cities, needs practical and realistic visions. In Reimagining Detroit article, Eisinger (2003) focuses on Detroit case and discusses unrealistic visions revealed by the city’s political and business leaders when the city is being reimagined. He addresses the issue from different perspective such as political and planning. This article shows the importance of the realistic visions for a city or a region. It also shows whom we should consider when we try to redevelop a city: residents or non-residents. Or what kind of consequences arises when we try to redevelop a city based on unsubstantial goals. The argument being made is we should redevelop a city as a livable place for its own community rather than just a destination
According to the article, smart decline theory, in other words planned shrinkage or systematic depopulation, focuses on to make quality of life better for locals and greened most of the vacant areas as parklands or recreational areas. In order to reinforce the application of the theory, the theory is examined in the conceptual framework of ethics, equity and social justice in the planning by considering both some smart decline practices from all over the world and its
Apart from that, Shilling and Vasudevan (2012) offer sustainability transformation for older industrial cities’ plans. To closely examine current practices and their weaknesses and strengths, they analyze four sustainability plans of Rust Belt Cities (Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Baltimore). Each has suffered significant loses of population and employment, and then deindustrialization and property abandonment. As a solution, most of the cities adopt sustainability plans in redevelopment process. Declining population in cities and creating compact semi-rural villages, transforming vacant lands and properties, reducing cities’ ecological footprints and carbon emissions can be counted as ways to reach more sustainable environments in cities. In other words, more livable and healthy cities can be created with sustainability plans. The paper explains all aspects of sustainability in plans with case studies. Also, it gives us idea about how sustainability plans work in practice in different places and how it can be applied and understood by local