The Journal has a front page dispatch today on Youngstown, Ohio, a former steel mill city that after decades of population loss and spreading blight is taking "an unusual approach: Allow such areas to keep emptying out and, in some cases, become almost rural. Unused streets and alleys eventually could be torn up and planted over, the city says. Abandoned buildings could be razed, leading to the creation of larger home lots with plenty of green space, and new parks."

It's a new tact—instead of fighting decline, Youngstown is attempting to manage it.

Even as the population has halved to about 80,000 since 1950, the city still has the same physical footprint to maintain, and the better-off suburbs have little interest in taking on the city's neighborhoods, so the question for Mayor Jay Williams has become how to manage change. Much of this entials laying claim to abandoned properties, which can be a legally tricky business, and clearing out areas that have hemmoraghed residents. In short, creating a less dense city, especially as residents are concerned that any new housing will be for the very poor, and destabilize the city's remaining stable neighborhoods.

There's a good deal more to the city's troubles, including five prisons in the metropolitan area, a problem with organized crime, and of course the conviction of former House Rep. James "Beam Me Up" Traficant on racketeering charges.

On his grim album, the Ghost of Tom Joad, Bruce Springsteen has one song called Youngstown, about the city's decline:

From the Monongahela valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalachia
The story's always the same
Seven hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name