Youngstown mayor: Detroit relocation plan may fail

Jay Williams, mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, has reportedly warned city officials in Detroit that their plan to offer incentives to encourage residents to move away from distressed areas of the city will fail, according to United Press International.

The city has drawn up a plan to relocate families, moving them from less inhabitable parts of the city, since an estimated 40 of the city's 139 square miles are occupied by vacant and abandoned building, the source said.

Williams is reportedly speaking from personal experience. Youngstown tried a similar program in 2005 in an effort to encourage people to move out of less livable areas in the city and shut them down, decreasing the size of the city, according to the news source.

However, the efforts were unsuccessful, possibly because they are based on an impractical theory that may not account for real-life situations, Williams told the source.

Some involved in the Youngstown plan have also agreed with Williams' statements, including Hunter Morrison, an urban planning professor, who helped draw up the unsuccessful plan. The city has "pretty much abandoned the notion that you're going to aggressively move out folks," Morrison told the source.

Part of the Detroit mayor's plan includes cracking down on absentee property owners, who are frequently the culprit of abandoned real estate in the area, according to the Detroit News. 

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