Urban decay

1. Urban Decay Formation

Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair. 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.

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.

Since the 1970s and 1980s, major structural changes in global economies, transportation, and government policy created the economic and then the social conditions resulting in urban decay. 

Urban decay has no single cause; it results from combinations of inter-related socio-economic conditions—including the city's urban planning decisions, tight rent control, 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 immigration restrictions. 

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.  These cities began to suffer industrial decline—high unemployment, poverty, and a decaying physical environment .

2. City revitalization

Highly vacant neighborhoods present challenges for balancing social, environmental, and economic considerations for land reuse. Since the 1960’s, many post-Industrial cities such as Detroit have seen extreme population decline, creating severe economic loss and disinvestment in their communities. Strategies and opportunities for stabilization and revitalization, especially those that can be created and implemented by community groups, have become particularly important in these cities. 

Social capital is a key component, as it acts as a form of currency to facilitate human interactions and develop social networks for city development. This in turn may increase social equity as social interactions create opportunities for neighborhood redevelopment. Key to city revitalization is the environmental justice perspective, which holds that social equity is greatly affected by infrastructure and the built environment. This position is illustrated by the goal of good urban planning to increase equality of access to resources for all neighborhoods. Infrastructure and built environment and the natural environment are closely related as aspects of the physical environment, and are most effectively addressed during ecological planning for climate change. “Cues to care” are particularly important to the social context of neighborhood appearance. Cues to care are a visible form of landscape intervention that indicate neighborhood investment. Cues to care can be used to support healthy neighborhoods by allowing people to understand the importance of ecology through an orderly frame. By providing this well cared-for frame for ecological functions, cues to care can promote environmental stewardship. 

Landscape care is an important concept for promoting the long-term cultural sustainability of ecological functions in the landscape. What is ecologically healthy is not aesthetically attractive, and therefore may not be valued. Linking cues to care to healthy ecologically functioning areas by design can communicate long-term value, and promote environmental stewardship through design. Care is also an important concept for promoting the long-term cultural sustainability of ecological functions in the landscape. Because what is ecologically healthy may not be attractive, and therefore may not be valued or cared for, linking cues to care to healthy ecologically functioning areas by design can communicate that these places should be valued in the long term.

A diverse range of activities are important to bring people to city and assure it remains occupied throughout the day and week. Traditional activities such as offices, government centers, and retail are important but must be supplemented by civic uses such as libraries, post offices, police stations, and churches; entertainment and cultural uses such as taverns, nightclubs, movies, performing arts, and museums; and downtown housing which has become increasingly important to strengthen the local market and enliven the city.

Revitalizing city areas can be a difficult undertaking. Significant investment is required from local municipalities, businesses, and the overall community in order to bring about the desired changes, but questions remain about what investments are necessary and which are most effective. As the private development industry relies on market preferences, cities have recognized the importance of marketing tools and quality of life improvements to attract people and increase overall activity.