Jim Russell over at Cleveburgh Diaspora has a great post that gives solid examples of what shrinking mid-size cities can do to reinvigorate their appeal and their fate.

Buffalo is talking about becoming a national laboratory dedicated to solving the vacant-housing crisis.  Our colleague, Joe Schilling who is the nation's leading thinker on vacant properties, gave a big boost to the proposal with a published article, “Buffalo as the Nation’s First Living Laboratory for Reclaiming Vacant Properties.”

Youngstown would be a living laboratory for dealing with economic globalization. Youngstown is already attracting scholars from domestic and foreign universities.

Jim hopes Pittsburgh will become a living laboratory managing brain drain. "The presence of Rand places enough talent in the region to make it the center of talent migration research. Also, Pittsburgh's impressive Diaspora makes for a best case scenario for the success of an urban alumni initiative that takes advantage of increasing geographic mobility, instead of fighting the flow."

Jim also does a hat tip to fellow Clevelander Richard Herman  who is "the center of gravity for a living laboratory designed to figure out how to attract more immigrants. Mr. Herman has already advanced a few policy innovations garnering national attention."

I think Jim has it down cold:  Establish these older industrial cities as "living labs" of exciting initiatives that excite the imaginations of all those smart students who fight to get into Teach for America and have flocked to New Orleans to rebuild that city.

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