Shrinking Smart

Is it time for Memphis to start thinking about "Shrinking Smart" instead of Smart Growth? (Not that incessant annexation qualifies as Smart Growth.) Check out this post on Smart City Memphis and the accompanying USA Today piece.

I’m always happy to see Richmond get good press. (I started my career there as a neighborhood planner during the first few years of the Neighborhoods in Bloom program). The success of the Neighborhoods in Bloom program is due in large part to Richmond’s awesome network of community development corporations. And those CDCs are as effective as they are because of strong support from city government, which turns over the lion’s share of its federal CDBG and HOME funding to them. (Richmond also city also maximizes the effect of the funding by restricting it to use within six target neighborhoods, rather than scattering it among projects across the city.) I haven’t studied this closely, but I wonder if our CDC community gets the same kind of support? (From what I've heard, they don't.)