Did anyone catch Nightline last night?  They did a story on a radical initiative in Flint, MI: bulldozing vacant properties, with the intention of eventually returning the land to nature.  Rush Limbaugh, for one - indignant as always - is none too pleased; this is happening in America!  We don't shrink, we grow!

Of course, many of us in the world of planning are familiar with the idea of shrinking cities; last spring some of us UEPers even got to meet, listen to and talk with Frank Popper, who is probably the country's most prolific academic proponent of the concept.  The Nightline report, which addressed the topic as if it was an alien from another universe, is really just the latest in a string of recent shrinking city coverage appearing in big media outlets (eg, Harvard professor Edward Glaeser recently wrote about it in the New York Times: "While there is no evidence that the Obama administration is committed to razing homes, it probably should be").  Though not many politicians are yet willing to hang their hat on physical constriction (listen carefully to Flint's mayor's hedge), there does appear to be a growing shrinking city movement.

We young academics often fall for the conceptual flavor of the week.  Does anyone want to argue for or against this one?