Urban decay

For the cosmetics company, see Urban Decay (cosmetics).

Broken Promises John Fekner Charlotte Street Stencils South Bronx, New York City 1980 Photograph by John Fekner. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan both came to this spot during their political careers to make promises.

Urban decay is a process by which a city, or a part of a city, falls into a state of disrepair. It is characterised by depopulation, property abandonment, high unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and a desolate and unfriendly urban landscape.

Urban decay is associated with Western cities, especially those in North America and a few parts of Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. During this time period major changes in global economies, transportation, and government policies created the conditions that lead to urban decay. Although not uniquely a North American experience, the effects of urban decay run counter to the development patterns found in most cities in Europe and the rest of the world, where slums are usually located on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas while the city center and inner city retain high real estate values and a steady or increasing population.

There is no single cause of urban decay, though it may be triggered by a combination of interrelated factors, including urban planning decisions, the development of freeways, suburbanisation, redlining, immigration restrictions and racial discrimination.

Background

Photograph of Highbridge Park in Manhattan showing abandonment and the exit ramp to the Cross-Bronx Expressway built by Robert Moses.

Since antiquity some people have chosen to live in cities for financial, social, religious or cultural reasons. Urban areas encourage the economical use of infrastructure, transportation and space. Urban areas offer the widest variety of opportunities for education and financial betterment. They are the meeting places where business is conducted and goods are exchanged. They are the ports of entry for immigrants and the seats of power for governments. Urban places are held together by the human desire to form societies, celebrate culture and establish meaningful social relations. Cities are the essential element of most civilizations. The very word "civilization" shares the same root as "city."

During the Industrial Revolution, people moved from the countryside into cities to find employment in the manufacturing sector. Industrial manufacturing was largely responsible for the population boom cities experienced during this time period.

Industrial manufacturing and the failures of city planning to keep up with the sudden changes during the late 19th and first part of the 20th century contributed to a poor and unhealthy urban environment. The population of cities increased dramatically and the infrastructure that was in place was visibly inadequate.

Changes in transportation (specifically the private motor car) and communications eliminated much of the cities' advantages. With the end of World War II in particular many political decisions were employed that favored suburban development that further encouraged suburbanisation. Such decisions have drawn the financial resources from the cities in favour of providing infrastructure for remote suburban areas. Racial discrimination, in this context known as "White Flight" in the United States, also played a part, as many chose to abandon cities and take part in an urban sprawl.

Suburban sprawl in Cincinnati, Ohio.

After World War Two, Western economies lifted tariffs and outsourced most manufacturing. During the change from a manufacturing to a service-based economy, the need for centralisation, and thus cities, has been reduced somewhat. Jobs no longer had to be centralised, and private motor transportation was growing in availability. Even for manufacturing workers, the process of suburbanisation was attractive because it allowed workers work at their factories, while commuting between their place of work and their larger suburban homes.

In the United States, the federal government aided the suburbanization process by mandating discriminatory lending practices through the FHA in the form of redlining. Later, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower urban centers were drained further through the building of the interstate highway system]. In North America this shift has 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 have experienced population decreases and a degradation of urban areas. Inner-city property values declined and economically disadvantaged populations moved in. In the U.S., the new inner-city poor were often black African-Americans who were migrated from the south in the 20s and 30s. As they moved into traditional white European-American neighborhoods, ethnic frictions served to accelerate flight to the suburbs.

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 subsidised lower density suburban housing.

On continental Europe and Oceania the historical core of major cities usually remains 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' and British 'Council Estates' which suffer the worst decay and blight. Simple economies of land mean that extremely low density housing in Europe is not practical due to higher population densities.

Examples of decay

Dream Bigger 125th street, New York City, under the West Side Highway. Though much of Harlem has rebounded from the urban decay of the 1970s and 1980s pockets still remain. (This area on the far end of 125th Street is now home to a large grocery store and several trendy restaurants.)

The car manufacturing sector was the base for Detroit's prosperity and employed the majority of its residents. When this industry began relocating outside of the city, it experienced population loss with associated urban decay, particularly after the 1967 riots. In 1950 the city's population was, according to US census, around 1.85 million; by 2003 this had declined to 911,000, a loss of nearly 940,000 people (52%).

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

File:NorthEnd 3.jpg

Decay in Hartford's North End

Large French cities are often surrounded by decayed areas. While the city center tends to be occupied mostly by middle- as well as upper-class residents, the city is often surrounded by very large mid to high-rise housing projects. The concentration of poverty and crime radiating from the developments often cause the entire suburb to fall into a state of urban decay as more affluent citizens seek housing in the city, or further out in semi-rural areas. In early November 2005, the decaying northern suburbs of Paris were the scene of severe riots sparked in part by the substandard living conditions in public housing projects.

Remedy

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 as its UK / European equivalent). The importance of gentrification should not be underestimated 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 neighbourhoods in many inner-cities, in many ways it was cause of urban decay rather than a remedy Housing projects became crime infested mistakes. These government efforts are thought by many now to have been misguided. Some cities have rebounded in spite of these policy mistakes for multiple reasons.

In Western Europe 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 a quasi 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 suburban estates and cités the solution is often more drastic with 1960/70 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. One of the best examples of this is in Hulme, Manchester, which was cleared of 19th century housing in the 1950's to make way for a large estate of high-rise flats. During the 1990's it was cleared again to make way for new development built along new urbanist lines. The area is held up as an excellent example of Urban Renaissance.

See also

• White Flight
• Gentrification
• First Friday
• Planned shrinkage
• List of riots related to urban decay
• Mortgage Discrimination
• California Proposition 14
• Redlining

External links

• Urban decay: barricading our cities, and our minds Art and politics site discussing Urban decay
• Towards a Strong Urban Renaissance' UK Government's 'Urban task Force' report
• U.S based 'Urban Renaissance Institute'
• Website with pictures of Urban Decay