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This proposed paper presentation is an extension of another paper I published in the journal Public Budgeting and Finance (“Right-sizing Cities and Fiscal Health: A look at Five Cities,†Public Budgeting & Finance, Vol. 35/No. 2 pp. 1 – 18, 2015). This study compared the financial condition of five paradigmatic shrinking cities in the United States that are like each other in the extent of decline, their economic base and their approaches to stabilizing their population and economy. These cities are Buffalo (NY), Cleveland (OH), Detroit (MI), Flint (MI) and Youngstown (OH). The years for the original study were from 2006 to 2010. This proposed paper presentation will extend this from 2011 to 2016 for the same cities. The purpose of this comparison is to see if these cities are making improvements in their financial condition over time and whether some of these cities are improving over others. The possible reasons for the trends as well as an exploration of the elements of their financial condition based on the series of ratios used to calculate the scores will be discussed in the presentation.

Shrinking cities, Rightsizing, Financial condition, Comparative case analysis