Index

1. Introduction
2. Causes
3. Effects
Remedy
4. Examples of Decay
5. Reasons For Urban Decay
6. References
1.0 INRTODUCTION

 Urban decay 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.
 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.
 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, depopulation by
suburbanization of peripheral lands, real estate neighborhood redlining,
and xenophobic immigration restrictions.
2.0 CAUSES

 The primary cause remains structural economic change resulting in

unemployment in manufacturing centres and the expansion of service and
retail sectors.
 In North America this manifested itself in strip malls, suburban retail and
employment centers and very low density housing estates. Alongside
large areas of many northern cities in the United States experiencing
rapid population decreases and a degradation of urban areas.
 The Western European experience differed in that the effect was often

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.

3.0 EFFECTS

 The most visible effect of urban decay is the degradation of urban areas,

the abandonment of buildings and not re-constructing buildings after

damage by fire etc. Graffiti litter and squatting of properties is common.
 These very visible effects are the symptoms of greatly reduced property
values, and massive population losses.

4.0 REMEDY

 The main responses to urban decay have been through positive public
intervention and policy, through a plethora of initiatives, funding streams and
agencies, and the effects of New Urbanism. The process of gentrification
 should not be underestimated and remains the primary means of a 'natural'
remedy.

5.0 EXAMPLES OF DECAY

 Britain experienced severe urban decay in the 1970s and 1980s.

 Major cities like Glasgow in Scotland, the towns of the South Wales

valleys and major English cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle.

 East of London all experienced population decreases with very large

areas of 19th century housing experiencing market price collapse.

Urban decay in the United States: Presidents Jimmy Carter (October 5, 1977) and
Ronald Reagan (August 5, 1980) the South Bronx, New York

A vacant apartment building in New York City

Much of the city of Camden, New Jersey suffers from urban decay
A Gigante store closed circa 2004 in Gomez Palacio, Mexico

Urban decay in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

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

 Urban decay in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

6.0 REASONS FOR URBAN DECAY

 Urban decay, also known as urban blight, is an unfortunate fact of life in

many large cities. Urban decay also occurs in smaller cities as well.
 There are a number of reasons behind urban decay, as well as ongoing
attempts to reverse the process. However, urban decay can prove to be
difficult to reverse, especially if a given area has been in a state of blight
for an extended period of time.

6.1 MAJOR JOB LOSS

 The so-called Rust Belt of manufacturing cities located in the

Northeastern and Midwestern United States have suffered tremendous
job loss because of globalization and the off-shoring of jobs to lower-
wage Asian countries.
 In cities like Detroit, entire neighborhoods have been virtually
abandoned, largely because high paying manufacturing jobs have
 vanished and the workers along with them. In addition, companies that
were related to the automobile industry were also forced to close up shop.
 Even basic services such as grocery stores were adversely affected, as the
neighborhood residents who used to shop there moved away.

6.2 RAPID CHANGES IN NEIGHBORHOOD DEMOGRAPHICS

 During the 1960s, the phenomenon of white flight became a common

occurrence in many urban neighborhoods.
 White flight occurs when white residents abandon a neighborhood in
large numbers because of the increasing presence of individuals or
families of color.
 The presence of nonwhite residents is not the source of urban decay.
Instead, urban decay occurs in this instance during the later stages of
white flight, when white residents literally abandon their homes,
sometimes because they cannot find buyers for them.

6.3 DECLINE OF PUBLIC HOUSING

 When public housing first appeared on the urban landscape in the United
States, it was seen as a source of transitional housing for individuals and
families who were establishing themselves financially, including
returning veterans. However, with the passing of the Brooke Amendment
by Congress, the mandate of public housing changed, so that public
housing was only available to those with very low or even no incomes.
 Without funds to maintain aging housing stock, and high concentrations
of very poor residents, public housing developments became decrepit and
dangerous, and a major center of urban decay in many cities.
6.4 SLUMLORDS

 Absentee landlords in very poor areas who fail to keep their properties
maintained are known in popular terms as slumlords.
 Slumlords have been a factor in urban decay in the U.S. for many
decades. In the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, ethnic enclaves
were often filled with buildings owned by slumlords, who spent little or
no money or effort to maintain them.
 Even in the early 21st century, absentee slumlords are a major factor in
contributing to urban decay.

6.5 CATASTROPHIC EVENTS

 Catastrophic events can also result in urban blight, either temporarily or

long term. For example, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused devastation to
large sections of New Orleans, with disproportionate damage to the
traditionally black and poor Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood.
 The city underwent a large-scale evacuation. Thousands of residents have
yet to return.
 More recently, tent cities, or settlements populated by individuals who
have lost their permanent housing, began to reappear in many urban areas
as the housing crisis claimed homes through foreclosure.
 These tent cities shared an eerie similarity to the "Hoovervilles" that
appeared during the Great Depression.
 Hoovervilles were named after the unpopular president Herbert Hoover,
whom many Americans blamed for the severity of the Depression, if not
the actual Depression itself.
 6.6 URBAN DECAY AND URBAN RENEWAL

 The decade of the 1960s was also a major period for a process known as
urban renewal. Urban renewal was designed to transform neighborhoods
that were viewed as being in decline and replace them with viable
residential or commercial projects.
 In actuality, urban renewal often occurred in established working class
neighborhoods where residents were forcibly displaced.
 In the late 20th century, efforts to revitalize areas of urban decay have
often included public housing developments.
 A major project that began in 2000 is the Plan for Transformation, which
is being conducted by the Chicago Housing Authority in cooperation
with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
 The intent of the Plan for Transformation is to revitalize the entire public
housing system for the city of Chicago.

7.0 REFERENCES
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_regeneration

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania

 Urban Sores: On the Interaction Between Segregation, Urban Decay, and

Deprived Neighbourhoods, by Hans Skifter Andersen. ISBN 0-7546-3305-5.
2003.

 Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States by Professor

Kenneth T Jackson (1987)
 The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, byRobert Caro,
p.522.