Urban decay in the United States: Presidents Jimmy Carter (October 5, 1976) and Ronald Reagan (August 5, 1980) campaigned before this ruin on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx, New York City

A vacant apartment building in New York City circa 2005.

Much of the city of Camden, New Jersey suffers from urban decay.

A Gigante store closed circa 2004 in Gomez Palacio, Mexico

An abandoned service station located at the intersection of Alabama Highway 51 and U.S. Highway 80 in Marvyn, Alabama

Urban decay (also known as urban rot and urban blight) is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. It may feature deindustrialization, depopulation or changing population, economic restructuring, abandoned buildings, high local unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and a desolate, inhospitable city landscape.

Since the 1970s and 1980s, urban decay has been associated with Western cities, especially in North America and parts of Europe. Since then, major structural changes in global economies, transportation, and government policy created the economic and then the social conditions resulting in urban decay.^[1]

The effects counter the development of most of Europe and North America; in countries beyond, urban decay is manifested in the peripheral slums at the outskirts of a metropolis, while the city center and the inner city retain high real estate values and sustain a steadily increasing populace. In contrast, North American and British cities often experience population flights to the suburbs and exurb commuter towns, i.e., white flight.^[2] Another characteristic of urban decay is blight—the visual, psychological, and physical effects of living among empty lots, buildings and condemned houses. Such desolate properties are socially dangerous to the community because they attract criminals and street gangs, contributing to the volume of crime.

Urban decay has no single cause; it results from combinations of inter-related socio-economic conditions—including the city’s urban planning decisions, the poverty of the local populace, the construction of freeway roads and rail road lines that bypass the area,^[3] depopulation by suburbanization of peripheral lands, real estate neighborhood redlining,^[4] and xenophobic immigration restrictions.^[5]

Background[link]

During the Industrial Revolution, from the late eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century, rural people moved from the country to the cities for employment in manufacturing industry, thus causing the urban population boom. However, subsequent economic change left many cities economically vulnerable. Studies such as the Urban Task Force (DETR 1999), the Urban White Paper (DETR 2000), and a study of Scottish cities (2003) posit that areas suffering industrial decline—high unemployment, poverty, and a decaying physical environment (sometimes including contaminated land and obsolete infrastructure)—prove "highly resistant to improvement".^[6]

Changes in means of transport, from the public to the private – specifically, the private motor car – eliminated some of the cities' public transport service advantages, e.g., fixed-route buses and trains. In particular, at the end of World War II, many political decisions favored suburban development and encouraged suburbanization, by drawing city taxes from the cities to build new infrastructure for remote, racially-restricted suburban towns. Historically in the United States, the white middle class gradually left the cities for suburban areas because of the perceived higher crime rates and danger caused by African-American migration north toward cities after World War I---the so-called "white flight" phenomenon.

In the U.S., the federal government legislated discriminatory lending practices for the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) via redlining.^[7][8]

Later, under president Dwight D. Eisenhower, urban centers were drained further through the building of the Interstate Highway System. In North America this shift manifested itself in strip malls, suburban retail and employment centers, and very low-density housing estates. Large areas of many northern cities in the United States experienced population decreases and a degradation of urban areas.^[9] Inner-city property values declined and economically disadvantaged populations moved in. In the U.S., the new inner-city poor were often African-Americans that migrated from the South in the 1920s and 1930s. As they moved into traditional white European-American neighborhoods, ethnic frictions served to accelerate flight to the suburbs.^[10] In Western Europe the experience differs, in that the effect was often unknowingly assisted by public sector policies designed to clear 18th- and 19th-century slum areas and movements of people out into state-subsidized, lower-density suburban housing.

In continental Europe and Oceania, the historical core of major cities has usually remained relatively affluent; it is generally the inner-city districts and the edge-of-town suburbs made up of single-class state-subsidised housing, such as the French "cités" or "banlieues" and British council estates, which suffer the worst decay and blight. Due to higher population densities in Europe, economics dictates that extremely low-density housing would be impractical.

Examples of decay[link]

The former Uline Ice Company Plant in Washington, D.C.

The manufacturing sector has been a base for the prosperity of major cities. When the industries have relocated outside of cities, some have experienced population loss with associated urban decay, and even riots. Cut backs on police and fire services may result, while lobbying for government funded housing may increase. Increased city taxes encourage residents to move out.^[11]

Britain experienced severe urban decay in the 1970s and 1980s. Major cities like Glasgow, the towns of the South Wales valleys, and some of the major industrial cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, and east London, all experienced population decreases, with large areas of 19th-century housing experiencing market price collapse.

Large French cities are often surrounded by areas of urban decay. Whilst city centers tend to be occupied mainly by upper-class residents, cities are often surrounded by large and contrasted suburbs.

From the 50's to the 70's, publicly funded housing projects resulted in large areas of mid to high-rise buildings. Replacing shanty towns and bringing new standards, these modern "grands ensembles" were appreciated, but these areas were heavily affected by economic depression in the 80's.

Because of concentrated unemployment, poverty and racial minorities, these areas fell into a state of urban decay, violence and educational difficulties in the 90's. As more affluent citizens sought housing in the city or further out in semi-rural areas, large areas surrounding the cities fell into decay. These areas suffer educational failure, fear, violence, drugs and discrimination.

In November 2005, the French suburbs were the scene of severe riots sparked in part by the substandard living conditions in these areas. These riots where triggered by the accidental death of two teenagers pursued by the police.^{[citation needed]} Many deprived suburbs of French cities were suddenly the scenes of clashes between youngsters and the police, with violence and numerous car burnings resulting in huge media coverage.

Today the situation remains generally unchanged however, there is still a level of disparity. Some areas are experiencing increased drug trafficking, whilst some northern suburbs of Paris and areas like Vaulx-en-Velin are undergoing refurbishment and re-development.

Response[link]

Pruitt–Igoe public housing, St. Louis, Missouri. In the 1950s, this urban renewal project was built; it failed and was razed in the 1970s.

The main responses to urban decay have been through positive public intervention and policy, through a plethora of initiatives, funding streams, and agencies, using the principles of New Urbanism (or through Urban Renaissance, its UK/European equivalent). Gentrification has also had a significant effect, and remains the primary means of a "natural" remedy.

In the United States, early government policies included "urban renewal" and building of large scale housing projects for the poor. Urban renewal demolished entire neighborhoods in many inner cities; in many ways, it was a cause of urban decay rather than a remedy.^[5][12] Housing projects became crime-infested mistakes. These government efforts are now thought by many to have been misguided.^[5][13] For multiple reasons, some cities have rebounded from these policy mistakes. Meanwhile, some of the inner suburbs built in the 1950s and 60s are beginning the process of decay, as those who are living in the inner city are pushed out due to gentrification.^[14]

In Western Europe and Asia, where land is much less in supply and urban areas are generally recognised as the drivers of the new information and service economies, urban regeneration has become an industry in itself, with hundreds of agencies and charities set up to tackle the issue. European cities have the benefit of historical organic development patterns already concurrent to the New Urbanist model, and although derelict, most cities have attractive historical quarters and buildings ripe for redevelopment.

In the inner-city estates and suburban cités, the solution is often more drastic, with 1960s and 70s state housing projects being totally demolished and rebuilt in a more traditional European urban style, with a mix of housing types, sizes, prices, and tenures, as well as a mix of other uses such as retail or commercial. One of the best examples of this is in Hulme, Manchester, which was cleared of 19th-century housing in the 1950s to make way for a large estate of high-rise flats. During the 1990s, it was cleared again to make way for new development built along new urbanist lines.

See also[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Urban decay

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Urban decay

• Images of the Chernobyl exclusion zone city of Pripyat
• Towards a Strong Urban Renaissance' Follow up report to UK Government's 'Urban task Force' report
• U.S based 'Urban Renaissance Institute'