Talk:Municipal disinvestment

POV

This article was created from two merges -- Planned shrinkage and Shrink to survive -- without discussion beforehand, and is now under the umbrella term Municipal disinvestment. Problem is, how extensively is this particular term used by sources? If it is used with those exact two words (municipal disinvestment), then let's get sources to show this; if not, then the article should either be renamed or the merge should be undone. My sense is there is an undercurrent of POV going on here (namely, that Municipal disinvestment is bad, targets minorities & the poor, etc) -- now the POV may not be bad in itself -- but there should be balancing viewpoints added in my view.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:53, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Disinvestment is the particular term that is being used by sources in this case, but the disinvestment article on Wikipedia has absolutely no coverage on the usage of the term in the context of urban policy, which is why I specified it as a municipal issue. I'm all for renaming it but I thought a merger with the disinvestment article itself would be a step too far after already three merges especially when that fourth article does not overlap at all with the subject material as of this time.

As for the POV issue, I think I made it very clear in the introductory segment of the article that this is not necessarily a 'race issue' but is a racialized one, in the US. All of the sources I've had available to me have indicated without a shadow of a doubt that, as you said, this targets minorities and the poor. I've made efforts to avoid any semblance of POV input in this article but I do intend to further draft the piece, reduce poor wording, and apply stronger indications of context where they may be lacking.

In order to strip the general article of its very direct connection with racism and discrimination, my best suggestion would be to look outside of the United States at the way that other urban centers and municipalities neglect their territories, including slums and shanty-towns, environmental neglect, and so on. That material however is outside of the scope of my understanding.

If there are any suggestions for a better name for this article, I have no horse in that race. I do think that the merger itself should remain as the three articles ultimately were describing the same issue and adding very little to the discussion as individual pages.

Euryphaessa16 (talk) 15:54, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

An addendum regarding the previous discussion on the merger: First off, I think benign neglect and planned shrinkage were ultimately the same article, and that merger is not in question. Perhaps because they are two terms for the same process, instead of a three-article merge, this page should be moved back into the 'planned shrinkage' page though the redlining and zoning issues don't fall under that subject and should be moved to the related articles section. The most questionable aspect of the merge was between planned shrinkage and shrink to survive which was split off from the planned shrinkage article to describe its own term - however, the original split was brought into question and a merge was suggested years ago with no closure on the topic (if I recall correctly the issue was brought up in talk:planned shrinkage, but the user who questioned the merge was anonymous and the user who made the questionable split in the first place has quit Wikipedia. Shrink to Survive ultimately is just another term for planned shrinkage, but the new article was vague enough to suggest otherwise because it did not provide details on the process under which shrink-to-survive is handled. The source I used for the Roxbury case study is a fantastic 'missing link' between the two processes, and I intend to use it in the shtink-to-survive section to indicate how the two processes are one and the same. Euryphaessa16 (talk) 16:03, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. I google-searched municipal disinvestment and it shows major US newspapers aren't using the term, ditto US magazines, so I think we have a problem with the term itself -- that is, by naming the article Municipal disinvestment when the term is not used in current political discourse, it's POVish and possibly a neologism so perhaps we should pick one of the earlier terms such as Planned shrinkage or Shrink to survive and re-jigger the article around that. What do you think?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:08, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Checking out previous terms. Benign neglect averaged 230 pageviews per day; Planned shrinkage had 50/day; Shrink to survive has 5/day. But the Benign neglect term focuses on a specific policy by Moynihan in the 60s & 70s, and the article was short; the longer (and better -- my POV) articles were Planned shrinkage and Shrink to survive (which are really about the same thing, right?) So I guess I'm leaning towards renaming the article title one of those; would that work for you?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:17, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm all for the move back to one of those terms, and I think my name choice in creating this article was a poor one. However, thinking it over, there is a very significant piece of context that goes beyond the scope of Planned Shrinkage itself: namely, planned shrinkage is a policy enacted in a city experiencing urban decay and has to smartly allocate its funds between different facets of administration, services, infrastructure, and territory. However, these communities are also razed, relocated, and similarly disinvested in when the city is experiencing periods of economic prosperity—this is evident in the redlining, rezoning, and (though I don't think it applies in this article) many forms of gentrification—I think relocating the material is the best choice, but do you think you could help me reconcile the way that the overarching point is framed?

If not, that's perfectly fine. I'd posit that benign neglect and planned shrinkage are the two 'legitimate' terms as, much like 'municipal disinvestment' I haven't seen the usage of shrink-to-survive in even a single source. I leave the choice between which of those articles is better suited to describe the situation to you, but I just want to hear your input on the particular issue I outlined above. Thanks! Euryphaessa16 (talk) 17:04, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok, agreed (also I've noticed the term Municipal disinvestment is used in academic literature to some extent so it is not all that inappropriate) but I've got other things to do and I'll try to get around to replying more sensibly sooner or later (no promises), although maybe I could say now that the underlying constant idea from all versions is the idea of municipalities neglecting part of their territory -- for whatever reason, good or bad, budget constraints, during decline or prosperity (as you point out). I'm writing a book on another subject when I'm not fixing stuff so I'm pretty busy these days so in the meantime please do what you think is best.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:21, 1 December 2016 (UTC)