> The problem is it's really hard to shrink concrete. A better summary in one line than most essays on the topic. We've put together a system that's unstable

> The problem is it's really hard to shrink concrete. A better summary in one line than most essays on the topic. We've put together a system that's unstable in the face of even modest shrinkage - and in some cases a mere failure to grow. The result is that even non-crisis change, like people moving to take better jobs, creates crisis results in shrinking cities. In the short term, promoting growth is probably an inescapable part of the solution. But if we keep up the pattern of debt-financing expansion by planning for growth, we're never going to do better than deferring the crisis. Long term, we need to build financially-stable cities and work out actual strategies for managed decline. 'Shrinking' and 'failing' are equivalent today, but that pattern needs to be broken if we're going to get out of crisis mode.