Originally published on WYPR.org. Listen to the full show.
“We begin today with a conversation about a new book that looks at the challenges facing six cites: Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and St Louis. How do the challenges these urban centers have to deal with differ from those of larger cities like New York or Los Angeles? The U.S. population has increased only slightly in recent years, but over the last 50 years, as the overall US population grew more than 50%, the citizenry of these six cites, however, shrank more than 38%. Are these cities poised for a comeback, and if so, what will the drivers of that comeback be? Tom’s first guest is Mac McComas, senior program manager with the Johns Hopkins 21st Century Cities Initiative. Along with 21CC director Matthew Kahn, McComas is co-author of Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities. “