Reviving America's Forgotten Neighborhoods

An Investigation of Inner City Revitalization Efforts

Elise M. Bright

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781135579128
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development

This book examines both successful and unsuccessful efforts at revitalizing low-income neighborhoods and features case studies on a wide range of American cities.

CHAPTER 1
Setting the Stage

The effort to answer the question posed in the Preface—What can be done to improve America’s poorest urban neighborhoods?—could follow at least two logical research paths. The first approach would be deductive: A search of the literature could identify theoretical constructs regarding why some urban neighborhoods have problems and what might improve them, in hopes that deductive reasoning could then be used to apply the results to real neighborhoods. The second approach would be inductive, based on empirical knowledge: Cases of successful low income neighborhood revitalization could be studied in hopes of deriving a paradigm regarding why these problems developed and what might improve these areas. This research employs aspects of both approaches—however, for reasons explained in the following sections, the focus is on the inductive approach.

THE DEDUCTIVE APPROACH

Many Americans think they know why the slums are so filled with problems: it is the fault of the people who live there. This attitude is well-documented in numerous popular articles and in the work of William Julius Wilson (1987), who coined the term “the undeserving poor” to describe this popular perception and who presents carefully researched evidence to counter it. Research shows that low income neighborhood residents are commonly viewed as being criminals, drunks, and drug dealers who threaten good citizens in the “better” parts of town; as people who have babies in order to get more welfare money (see Anderson, 1990, for convincing evidence to the contrary); people who don’t get married because they want the rest of us to be responsible for their kids (Mead, 1992; see W. J. Wilson, 1987, for an opposing view); who don’t hold jobs because they’d rather live off the rest of us (Schien, 1995, documents and eloquently refutes this attitude); and who have chosen to replace American “family values” with drugs, domestic violence, and crime (see Adler, 1995, for an alternative, more realistic and compassionate view of the reasons for the prevalence of these problems).

The literature reveals that the reasons for low income neighborhood problems are far different. There are many works that suggest a wide range of possible causes for the present condition of very low income neighborhoods, ranging from globalization of the economy to a lack of “marriageable men” (in addition to those mentioned in the following paragraphs, see Downs, 1991; Fainstein, 1994; Feagin, 1978; Fuller & Fuller, 1990; Orum, 1995; Phillips, 1996; Roudebush & Well, 1980; Sands, 1994; Sawicki & Craig, 1996). Here is a brief summary of these studies.

The roots of the deterioration found in so many of America’s big cities reach back to the slowing of European immigration in the early 1900s, and the ripple effect of successive waves of poorer people moving into the aging housing stock. The massive migration of African-Americans from the south in the ensuing decades (Keating, Krumholz, & Perry, 1995) coupled with housing discrimination when they arrived initiated the formation of racially segregated neighborhoods, replacing the ethnically segregated ones that had previously housed European immigrants (Whyte, 1966). There is no doubt that the quality of life in these segregated neighborhoods was far from ideal; minority neighborhoods suffered from lower levels of city service provision, school quality, and so on, than were found in their nonminority counterpart areas. But there is also no doubt that the quality of life in these minority neighborhoods then was much better than it is today, largely because, as the reader will see in Malcolm X’s description of his life in Roxbury, Massachusetts (quoted in Chapter 4), these neighborhoods contained the full spectrum of economic and social groups. Until the federal government stepped in after World War II (as explained in the next paragraph), America’s big cities still housed large numbers of middle class and wealthy residents. These people not only had the political clout necessary to demand adequate schools, roads, police protection, and other city services, they also provided the tax base to fund provision of these services. Even the racially segregated neighborhoods were, at least, economically integrated (Byrum, 1992; Jacobs, 1969; Whyte, 1966).

But in the 1950s and 1960s a number of well-intentioned programs were enacted into law that, although often successful in achieving their stated goals, had severe unintended adverse effects on big-city urban neighborhoods throughout the country. First, the postwar Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration (VA) mortgage loan programs coupled with U.S. Department of Transportation urban highway-building programs in following years¹ energized white flight to the suburbs; soon, jobs and businesses left too (Byrum, 1992). Urban highway-building not only made living far from work a real possibility, it also displaced thousands of city residents, ruining the one advantage still held by urban neighborhoods when compared to the suburbs: quality of social life, or social capital.² Displacement reached new heights as the federal urban renewal program was implemented in the 1950s and 1960s, further disrupting viable neighborhoods (Gans, 1962) and accentuating the displacement and reconcentration of the urban poor in cities throughout America. In response, in the late 1960s riots broke out in poor minority urban neighborhoods across the nation, just as federal civil rights laws were passed, which began to open the suburbs to middle and upper class minorities. The 1970s and 1980s also saw the passage of tough federal environmental laws such as brownfields cleanup requirements and enhanced global communications and transportation, which facilitated not only legitimate business but also the international drug trade (Adler, 1995), and relaxation of federal economic and legal barriers to manufacturing overseas where labor was cheap, regulations few, and benefits lacking. Together these forces lured away the few manufacturing jobs that had resisted the flight to the suburbs (Blakely, 1994; Judd & Parkinson, 1990). In the 1980s the federal government delivered the final blow when it slashed its aid to cities.

The end result of all these unintended side effects of otherwise well-conceived federal policies and programs should have been entirely predictable. Nearly all those who could move out of the old urban neighborhoods did, leaving the poor (including many single mothers and their children), elderly homeowners, and the mentally ill or physically disabled behind (Baum & Burnes, 1993). Meanwhile, with political and economic power leaving, city services were cut back, and the remaining city residents were left to fill the gap with their own dwindling financial resources. Buildings and lots were abandoned, and the once-proud neighborhoods became seas of devastation. A foreign visitor summed up the result when he returned, shocked and disillusioned after spending the day working in a Dallas slum, and declared, “These places are worse than Lebanon during the war!” (author’s interview with Aref Joulani, 1990).

Federal policies may have been the initiators of inner city neighborhood decline, but their effects were supported and augmented by longstanding state and local policies and laws that obstructed what efforts were made to keep urban neighborhoods vital. For example, in an effort to attract businesses, many localities loosened up zoning laws to the point of creating blight (Babcock & Weaver, 1979). State laws regarding property appraisal and tax assessment and collection fueled abandonment and decimated property values in some poor neighborhoods (Bright, 1995). City decisions regarding provision of services, infrastructure maintenance, and allocation of grant funds often penalized inner city neighborhoods (Wagner, Joder, & Mumphrey, 1995; Bright, 1996). The lack of effective state and local policies regarding growth management and intergovernmental cooperation did nothing but help to fuel the federally financed move of upper and middle class residents to the suburbs (Nelson & Milgroom, 1993). In the academic literature, these state and local laws and policies have received much less attention than the federal ones. However, the reader will see that the cases documented in this book show them to be of paramount importance. Even if no new federal initiatives are proposed, there is much that states and localities can do to undo the damage done to their poor neighborhoods.

Besides discussing reasons for decline, the academic literature offers many substantive, often divergent solutions. Mixing incomes is favored by some (Levitt, 1987; Gratz, 1994), while others believe that the existing low income population should be retained without gentrification (Gans, 1962). Some favor regional government as a solution (Rusk, 1993), while others emphasize the need for community control (Glaser, Denhardt, & Grubbs 1995); some favor housing construction (Fuller & Fuller, 1990), while others tout the importance of building social capital (Schien, 1995); some suggest universal subsidies (Wilson, 1987), while others favor programs that target the needy (Feagin, 1975). In sum, there appears to be little agreement on which are the best substantive programs³ to improve America’s low income neighborhoods.

On closer observation, however, one realizes that many of these published works are focusing on a part of the problem. To borrow an analogy from children’s literature, in the folk tale about the blind men and the elephant, each visually challenged man describes an elephant based on what he felt when touching one part. Each is convinced that his description is correct, and in fact, for the part of the elephant each man touched, it is. But all the information must be combined to even approximate a description of a whole elephant.

The scholars whose works were cited previously are far from blind; they take great pains to point out the limits of their work and the importance of conducting further research into the problem at hand, and many of them see a great deal of the proverbial elephant. The point of the story is simply to suggest that there may be more agreement in the current literature than there first appears to be, since much of the work is complementary rather than contradictory; all the authors may be right. The causes of low income neighborhood decline are legion. A plethora of federal, state, regional and local government policies are cited as culprits; policies of lending institutions, insurance companies, retailers and corporations are also responsible. Likewise, a multitude of actions apparently would be needed to effect change. For example, reviving a single neighborhood may necessitate efforts designed to retain the existing population while encouraging wealthier new residents to move in; universal child care subsidies as well as targeted income subsidies; and so on. Finally, since each neighborhood is different, no single substantive combination of programs—for example, jobs for teenagers and housing rehabilitation— will work in all neighborhoods. The substantive aspects of revitalization must be tailored to each area.

Thus, it became clear that building a deductive model based on current literature was well beyond the scope of this research effort. Indeed, the problem is so complex that it seems beyond our capabilities to solve—as complex as sending a human to another star or finding a cure for AIDS. However, the deductive investigation was still used in the data analysis; not to build a comprehensive model revitalization program, but as a check on the conclusions derived from the descriptive studies. For example, if a factor was found to be important in several revitalization efforts, was it also mentioned in the literature and were theories advanced as to why? A factor that was important in the revitalization projects studied but was not mentioned very often in the literature would be less likely to be included in any paradigm that might be derived from the case material. With this in mind, we turned to evidence from the real world. Perhaps some substantive or procedural common ground would be found there.

THE INDUCTIVE APPROACH

There are case studies that focus on successful instances of commercial revitalization in low income areas (Gratz, 1995; Ford Foundation, 1973; Frieden & Sagalyn, 1992; Kotler, 1978; McNulty, Jacobson, & Penne, 1985; Wagner et al., 1995). In the 1970s, some of these were of major importance in spreading the concept of the community development corporation, while others are now receiving attention as models for downtown redevelopment or new urbanist approaches. The proven utility of this literature gave support for the idea that an empirical study of successful residential revitalization efforts in poor neighborhoods could yield important information regarding what actions apparently succeed in achieving neighborhood revitalization.

Detailed case studies of the revitalization of poor urban residential neighborhoods are more rare than are commercial ones; there is very little empirical research regarding what has worked for the former. Apparently, either there are few successes to report, or they have not been widely publicized.⁴ What documentation there is (for example, Keating, Krumholz, & Star, 1996; Medoff & Sklar, 1994; Mier, 1993; Pierce & Guskind, 1993; Rooney, 1995; Temkin & Rohe, 1996; van Vliet, 1997) lends support to the idea that case studies might provide valuable insights. Thus the research question “What can be done to improve America’s poorest urban neighborhoods?” was refined to focus on the inductive approach, becoming “What, if any, lessons for achieving success might be extracted from studying apparently successful low income residential neighborhood improvement efforts?” In order to answer this question we first had to discover whether any successful revitalization efforts have occurred in these neighborhoods. If the results were positive, we would investigate how the successful revitalization was achieved and what lessons might be applicable elsewhere.

DEFINING SUCCESSFUL REVITALIZATION

In order to identify suitable projects for study, the concept of “successful revitalization” first has to be defined. This concept really necessitates two definitions: “revitalization” and “success.”

The issue of what constitutes “revitalization” and how best to measure it remains unresolved in the existing literature (for example, Baker, 1995; Byrum, 1992; Varady, 1986). For the purpose of this book, “revitalization” is defined as “changes that improve the existing residents’ ‘quality of life.’” This necessitates a definition of “quality of life.” Many scholars have attempted to define and measure quality of life (for example, Burchell & Listokin, 1981; Cole, Smith, & Taebel, 1984; Environmental Protection Agency, 1973; McNulty et al., 1985; Myers, 1988; Savageau, 1993). As discussed earlier, many scholars have also identified a wide range of problems—that is, barriers to a high quality of life—faced by residents of very low income inner city areas (for example, see Anderson, 1990; Blakely, 1994; Ferguson & Dickens, 1999; Fuller & Fuller, 1990; Gittell & Vidal, 1999; Orum, 1995; Phillips, 1996; Roudebush & Well, 1980; Sawicki & Craig, 1996; Schien, 1995; Squires, 1994; Wilson, 1987). After a thorough review of the works, the author developed a typology designed for inner city residential areas in which quality of life is reflected by the quality of neighborhood safety, services, shelter, and social capital, with a large number of more detailed items falling into each of these four broad categories. Thus “revitalization” was defined as improvement in the factors listed in Figure 1.

Next came the need to define “successful” revitalization. Statistics show that in most of the measures of safety, services, and shelter listed in Figure 1, in any large city the poorest neighborhoods rank at or near the bottom (McHarg, 1969; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990). Only in the area of social capital can a case be made that low income unrevitalized neighborhoods are on a par with, or even superior to, their wealthier neighbors (Baumgartner, 1988; Gans, 1962; Whyte, 1966) prior to revitalization. Thus, measures of safety, services, and shelter correlate well with the income level of urban neighborhoods, as do some social capital measures. At least in theory, they could form a set of benchmarks for assessing the success of revitalization efforts. Note that measures of wealth (income, property values, and so on) are not included in Figure 1. This represents a deliberate decision, the reasons for which are discussed later in this chapter.

MEASURING SUCCESS

Projects that produced overall improvement in some of the measures of residents’ safety, services, shelter and/or social capital (as listed in Figure 1) were considered to be at least partially successful. However, determining the extent of the improvement and whether it occurred as a direct result of the project proved to be no easy task. A quantitative approach was considered and rejected, for the following reasons. First, data is only available for many of the measures every ten years, when the Census is taken; this time frame is too long, and/or too much at odds with project timing, to detect changes resulting from a single neighborhood revitalization effort. Also, many of the revitalization efforts were not finished before 1990, so their effects would not yet show in the Census. Data on other measures (for example crime ra...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• DEDICATION
• SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
• LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
• CHAPTER 1: SETTING THE STAGE
• CHAPTER 2: SEATTLE: A PLANNED APPROACH
• CHAPTER 3: REGIONAL GOVERNANCE, FINANCE, AND SERVICE PROVISION: A TALE OF SIX CITIES
• CHAPTER 4: BOSTON: AN EMPOWERED, SUPPORTED NEIGHBORHOOD
• CHAPTER 5: PITTSBURGH: PARTNERSHIPS, PRESERVATION, AND THE CRA
• CHAPTER 6: CLEVELAND: A PROMISING, MULTIFACETED APPROACH
• CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY