Chapters two and three from, A Plague on Houses, written by Wallace D. and Wallace R., provides the history and reasoning behind the problem with fires that New York City had in the late 1900s. Chapter two begins by explaining the ideas behind benign neglect and planned shrinkage . The chapter also elaborates how those two ideas fueled the the amount of fires that occurred in New York City. Chapter three goes onto explaining how the fires affected New York City in regards to its populations, communities, and its outcomes.

Chapter two, with its ideas of benign neglect and planned shrinkage, brings up an age old argument that involves life and death: If a patient is terminally ill, would you pull the plug or let the patient die on his/her own?

Acting on the fact that a neighborhood, in its whole, is a living entity, benign neglect and planned shrinkage can be defined as:
Benign neglect – allowing the neighborhood to die out on its own while still providing life support.
Planned shrinkage – pulling the plug on a dying neighborhood.

Roger Starr’s planned shrinkage embodies the previous stated definition. Starr felt that if a neighborhood was going to die, it might as well die quickly and painlessly. The plan was when the neighborhood dies, a new thriving neighborhood can be born. This makes logical sense, except for the fact that there isn’t a painless way of ending a neighborhood. Pulling the plug isn’t ever painless. It might actually be more painful. In this case, it was definitely more painful seeing how  there was the constant spread of fires, abandonment of neighborhoods, deaths, and especially the negative impact planned shrinkage had on the people of New York City.

Discussion question: What would be the most painless way to have a neighborhood die out? When does planned shrinkage seem like a good idea?