#196 The Shrink Smart Project: Managing Population Loss in Rural Communities

Preserving quality of life in shrinking Iowa cities. A grant from the National Science Foundation is exploring how communities can protect quality of life and community infrastructure while they lose population. The Shrink Smart Project aims to develop data-driven tools to assist towns in actively planning for shrinkage. Three people from Iowa State University joined the podcast: Kimberly Zarecor is an Associate Professor of Architecture, Sara Hamideh is an Assistant Professor of Community & Regional Planning, and Eric Davis is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science. They discussed how they are using both data and qualitative research to figure out why some rural communities are maintaining their quality of life while they shrink and others don't.