Product Code Database
Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the Sociology process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban decay.
Since the 1970s and 1980s, urban decay has been a phenomenon associated with some Western City, metropolitan areas, and Megalopolis, especially in North America and parts of Europe. Cities have experienced population flights to the suburbs, Exurb, , Village, hamlets, Rural area and outposts; often in the form of white flight. Another characteristic of urban decay is blight – the visual, psychological, and physical effects of living among empty lots, buildings, and condemned houses.
Urban decay is often the result of interrelated socioeconomic issues, including urban planning decisions, economic deprivation of the local populace, the construction of freeways and railroad lines that bypass or run through the area, The construction of the Gowanus Parkway, laying a concrete slab on top of lively, bustling Third Avenue, buried the avenue in shadow, and when the parkway was completed, the avenue was cast forever into darkness and gloom, and its bustle and life were forever gone.
depopulation by suburbanization of peripheral lands, real estate neighborhood redlining, and immigration restrictions.
Changes in transportation from public to private (specifically, to the private Car) eliminated some of the public transport service advantages associated with cities, 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 through financial incentives like government-supported FHA loans and VA mortgage aid. This allowed many veterans of World War II and their families to afford comfortable single-family housing in suburbs.
The manufacturing industry has historically been a base for the prosperity of major cities. When these industries relocate to larger, less urban environments, some cities have experienced population loss with associated urban decay, and even urban riots. Cutbacks on police and fire services may result, while lobbying for government-funded housing may increase. Increased city taxes encourage residents to move out. Libertarian economists argue that rent control contributes to urban blight by reducing new construction and investment in housing and discouraging maintenance.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, publicly funded housing projects resulted in large areas of mid- to high-rise buildings. These modern "grands ensembles" were welcomed at the time, as they replaced shanty towns and raised living standards, but these areas were heavily affected by economic depression in the 1980s.
The banlieues of large cities like Lyon, especially the northern Parisian banlieues, are criticized by the country's territorial spatial planning administration. They have been ostracized since the Paris Commune government of 1871, considered as "lawless" or "outside the law", even "outside the Republic", as opposed to "deep France" or "authentic France", which is associated with the countryside.Anne-Marie Thiesse (1997) Ils apprenaient la France, l'exaltation des régions dans le discours patriotique, MSH.
In November 2005, the French suburbs were the scene of riots sparked by the accidental electrocution of two teenagers in the northern suburbs of Paris, and fueled in part by the substandard living conditions in these areas. Many deprived suburbs of French cities were the scenes of clashes between youth and the police, with violence and numerous car burnings resulting in media coverage.
Today, the situation remains generally unchanged; however, there is a level of disparity. Some areas are experiencing increased drug trafficking, while some northern suburbs of Paris and areas like Vaulx-en-Velin are undergoing refurbishment and redevelopment.
Some previously Monotown towns in France are experiencing increasing crime, decay, and decreasing population. The issue remains a divisive issue in French public politics.
However, various events, starting with the 1980 earthquake in Irpinia, led to urban decay inside this project and in the surrounding areas. Many families left homeless by the earthquake squatted inside the Vele. The lack of police presence led to a rise in Camorra drug trade, as well as other gang and illicit activity.
Population decline in particular was noted to be faster in inner-city areas than in outer ones; however, a decline was noted throughout the 1970s, through the 1990s in both inner- and outer-city areas. Jobs declined between 1984 and 1991 (a decline observed particularly among men), while outer areas saw job growth (particularly among women). The UK also saw urban areas become more ethnically diverse; however, urban decline was not limited to areas which saw population changes. Manchester in 1991 had a non-white population 7.5% higher than the national average, but Newcastle had a 1% smaller non-white population.
Features of British urban decay analyzed by the Foundation included empty houses, widespread demolitions, declining property values, and low demand for all property types, neighborhoods, and tenures.
Urban decay has been found by the Foundation to be "more extreme and therefore more visible" in the north of the United Kingdom. This trend of northern decline has been observed not just in the United Kingdom but also in much of Europe. Some seaside resort towns have also experienced urban decay towards the end of the 20th century. The UK's period of urban decay was exemplified by popular songs, such as The Specials' 1981 single "Ghost Town" and The Jam 1978 single "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight".
Some historians differentiate between the first Great Migration (1910–1930), numbering about 1.6 million African-American migrants who left mostly Southern rural areas to migrate to northern and Midwestern industrial cities, and, after a lull during the Great Depression, a Second Great Migration (1940–1970), in which 5 million or more African-Americans moved, including many to California and various western cities. William H. Frey, "The New Great Migration: Black Americans' Return to the South, 1965–2000", The Brookings Institution, May 2004, pp. 1–3 . Retrieved 19 March 2008.
Between 1910 and 1970, African-Americans moved from Southern states, especially Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, to other regions of the United States, many of them townspeople with urban skills. By the end of the Second Great Migration, African-Americans had become an urbanized population, with more than 80% of Black Americans living in cities. A majority of 53 percent remained in the South, while 40 percent lived in the Northeast and Midwest and 7 percent in the West.AAME
From the 1930s until 1977, African-Americans seeking borrowed capital for housing and businesses were discriminated against via the federal government–legislated discriminatory lending practices for the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) via redlining. Principles to Guide Housing Policy at the Beginning of the Millennium, Michael Schill & Susan Wachter, Cityscape. "Racial" Provisions of FHA Underwriting Manual, 1938 Recommended restrictions should include provision for the following ... Prohibition of the occupancy of properties except by the race for which they are intended ... Schools should be appropriate to the needs of the new community and they should not be attended in large numbers by inharmonious racial groups. Federal Housing Administration, Underwriting Manual: Underwriting and Valuation Procedure Under Title II of the National Housing Act With Revisions to February, 1938 (Washington, D.C.), Part II, Section 9, Rating of Location.
In 1977, the U.S. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.
Later urban centers were drained further through the advent of mass car ownership, the marketing of suburbia as a location to move to, and the building of the Interstate Highway System. In North America, this shift manifested itself in strip malls, suburban retail and employment centers, and low-density housing estates. Large areas of many northern cities in the United States experienced population decreases and a degradation of urban areas. Urban Decline and the Future of American Cities By Katharine L. Bradbury, Kenneth A. Small, Anthony Downs, p. 28. Ninety-five percent of cities with populations greater than 100,000 people in the U.S. lost population between 1970 and 1975.
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 traditionally white neighborhoods, ethnic frictions served to accelerate flight to the suburbs.
In the inner-city estates and suburban cities, the solution is often more drastic, with 1960s and 1970s state housing projects being 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.
"(In Chicago) while whites were among those uprooted in Hyde Park and on the North and West Sides, urban renewal in this context too often meant, as contemporaries noted, "***** removal". Between 1948 and 1963 alone, some 50,000 families (averaging 3.3 members) and 18,000 individuals were displaced."These government efforts are now thought by many to have been misguided.
For multiple reasons including increased demand for urban amenities, some cities have rebounded from these policy mistakes. Meanwhile, some of the inner suburbs built in the 1950s and 1960s are beginning the process of decay, as those who are living in the inner city are pushed out due to gentrification.
Notes
|
|
