Plan Implementation Challenges in a Shrinking City

Problem, research strategy, and findings: In 2005, Youngstown (OH) released a widely publicized comprehensive plan, the Youngstown 2010 Citywide Plan. This plan emphasized “smart shrinkage,” reflecting the city’s downsized built environment and reduced population. In 2013 the city released the Youngstown Redevelopment Code, which was zoning intended to implement the comprehensive plan. In this study we measure whether the comprehensive plan conformed with the Youngstown Redevelopment Code by comparing land use designations on a parcel-by-parcel basis between the comprehensive plan, the pre-2013 code, and the Youngstown Redevelopment Code. To better understand the causality of conformance, we conducted semistructured interviews with framers of the comprehensive plan and the Youngstown Redevelopment Code documents. We find weak conformance between the comprehensive plan and the Youngstown Redevelopment Code; most of the comprehensive plan’s downsizing recommendations were unimplemented. There was close conformance between the pre-2013 code and the Youngstown Redevelopment Code, and most of the differences between them reflected the comprehensive plan’s recommendations. Informants attribute the weak conformance between the comprehensive plan and the Youngstown Redevelopment Code to many of the former’s ideas not being legally defensible. Changing political regimes, shifts in public opinion, and the driving need for economic investment were also cited as contributors to this weak conformance.Takeaway for practice: Our findings indicate that implementing smart shrinkage land use recommendations in shrinking cities is likely to be challenging because legislators may resist codification of reduced populations and lessened economic capacity. Translating comprehensive plan ideas into zoning regulations may be subject to political, social, economic, and legal forces that limit plan enactment. These findings may apply to all cases where comprehensive plans require translation into zoning regulations for implementation. Local government officials and planners should consider these constraints on plan implementation through zoning when they are framing comprehensive plan strategies.