3.1.3 Inner City Development / Redevelopment and the Poor 1 UPA Package 3, Module 1 INNER CITY DEVELOPMENT / REDEVELOPMENT AND THE POOR

1 3.1.3 Inner City Development / Redevelopment and the Poor

UPA Package 3, Module 1

INNER CITY DEVELOPMENT / REDEVELOPMENT AND THE POOR


Definitions of related concepts

• Inner city, city center, urban core, downtown, central business district (CBD)

• Deliminating boundaries

Processes and issues associated with the inner city

• The formation of ghettos

• The creation of slums

• The fiscal crisis of inner city

Contents


• Theories of urban blight

• Varying approaches to urban redevelopment

– government-initiated redevelopment

– private sector-led redevelopment

– land readjustment

• Socio-spatial impacts of inner city redevelopment

– white collar economy and low income housing

– gentrification

Inner City Redevelopment and its Impact on The Poor


• Inner city, city center, urban core, downtown, central business district (CBD), poblacion, all mean the same thing with slight differences according to cultural nuances among those using these terms.

• Perceptually, that part of the city where we find tall buildings, crowds of pedestrians, office sky-scrapers and skyline vistas, busy hotels and restaurants.

Definitions


Precise boundaries are difficult to delineate. Some attempts: Locating the peak land value intersection

• Use of two indexes by Murphy and Vance, Jr.

• Core-integuments by Smailes

• Core-frame method by Hartshorn

Delimitation


• Also known as 100% corner, the intersection of main streets

• Also known as he heart of he CBD

• Land values and land uses are most intense

• The point of unparalleled accessibility

• The point around which all land uses of the city streets were arranged

Locating the Peak Land Value Intersection (PLVI)


• Central business height index = ratio of total ground floor space of a block to the floor area occupied by CBD uses

• Central business intensity index = ratio of the total floor area in the block devoted to CBD uses to the total block floor area

Blocks with high values on both indexes from the CBD

Two Indexes Method (R. Murphy and J. Vance Jr.)


• Core of the city center = district with functional distinctiveness, with highly developed quarters for specialized central functions

• Integuments = surrounding tracts enclosing the core which represent successive phases of urban growth

Growth of every town consists of a twin process of outward extension and internal reorganization

“Core-Integuments” (A.E. Smailes)


• Core = the most intensively utilized part, distinctive for high-rise structures, internal business linkages, pedestrian traffic, limited parking space, and near-complete use of sites

• Frame = composed of warehouses, parking lots, medical services, light industry, and wholesale functions

– vehicular traffic predominates

– supports core activities

– serves other parts of the city as well

Core-Frame Method (T.A. Hartshorn)


Characteristics of the CBD Core


Characteristics of the CBD Core (continued)


Characteristics of the CBD Frame


3.1.3 Inner City Development/Redevelopment and the Poor

Characteristics of the CBD Frame (continued)


Source: Hartshorn, p. 335

Core – Frame Illustrated


• The formation of ghettos

– ghetto defined

–Ghettoization process

– inner city ghetto

– suburban ghetto

– poverty and the worker class

Processes and Issues Associated with the Inner City


• Generically, a specific area in which people, usually immigrants, of similar ethnic and religious background concentrate.

• In the US, ghetto has come to refer to black residential areas because blacks generally have been confined to restricted space by the community as a whole.

• In the popular mind, ghetto is identified (often erroneously) with poverty, slums, and blight.

Ghetto Defined


• Generally part of the filtering process adopted by foreign immigrants, ghetto formation may involve the following sequential steps:

– Blockbusting - one or two black families move into a formerly all-white residential area, creating panic, a drop in housing demand, and rapid turn over among the white residents.

– Fall in house values, which is actually only a myth spread around by speculative realtors and appraisers.

– Tipping point - proportion of minority households that white neighborhoods can tolerate. Once the point is exceeded

– Invasion/succession - complete turn over occurs

Process of Ghetto Formation


Source: Hartshorn, p. 291

Ghetto in the Inner City


Source: Hartshorn

Ghetto in the Suburbs


• Segregated housing spaces

• Metropolitan areas racially polarized spatially

– Central cities becoming increasingly non-white

– Suburbs remain predominantly white

• Other minority groups, esp. Hispanics and Asians, continue to expand in central cities but do not expand into predominantly black neighborhoods

Socio-Spatial Effect


.• Socioeconomic change among ghetto residents

enabled them to be upwardly mobile to move residence to the suburbs. Others, however remained. This gave rise to two types of ghettos.

– Gilded ghettos - middle - and upper-status block residential communities in the suburbs or in outlying portions of central cities.

– Impacted ghettos - most isolated underclass areas


Despite being targeted by government assistance programs, affirmative action initiatives, and civil rights legislations, underclass communities continue to grow, indicated by

• high rates of school dropout

• joblessness

• female-headed families

• welfare dependency

• out-of-wedlock births

• illicit drug and gambling activities

• lack of role models

The Underclass Phenomenon


• Black businesses are scarce in the area to provide first work experience for the youth.

• Protected black markets have vanished with integration so money does not cycle back into the black community as it did in the past.

• Affirmative action programs have not been as successful in the private as in the public sector.

• Targeting aid to the most distressed areas traps recipients in a culture of dependency.

Other Problems of the Underclass


• Urban blight - the physical condition of urban housing characterized by decline or functional depreciation which is unacceptable to the community.

• Slum - a more inclusive concept which pertains to particular sections of the city where houses are crowded, old and visually unpleasant and where the residents exhibit social disorders like alcoholism, drug taking and trafficking, prostitution, etc.

Whereas blight has only physical connotation, slum has both physical and social dimensions.

Slums and Blighted Areas


• Transformation of rural land to residential use.

• Higher density apartment construction in inner ring.

• Downgrading and conversion of neighborhood through

– subdividing existing structures

– increasing population density

– increasing young families

– influx of ethnic minority groups

• Thinning out as children move out

• Renewal or decay of obsolete areas

Stages of Neighborhood Change


• Abandonment, comes in six stages

– neighborhood deterioration-precondition

– Scattered abandonment - widely dispersed

– Contagious abandonment – intensified

– Wholesale abandonment - over half of all units

– Clearance, renewal or rehabilitation – widespread

– Pathological abandonment - change use

Options for Declining Neighborhoods


• Housing foreclosure - repossession by lending agency or insurer of property that is in arrears or in default of loan payments leads to visual blight:

– boarded up windows, unkept yards, signs

– vacant house vulnerable to vandalism

• Urban renewal (to be discussed later)


Fiscal Crisis of Inner Cities, Causes

• Declining populations in central cities

• Sharp decline of older manufacturing cities

• Generally high suburban growth and metropolitan deconcentration

• Rising state and local expenditures accompanied by declining revenues

• Deterioration of urban public services and basic urban infra-structure esp. in older declining cities

Inner City


3.1.3 Inner City Development/Redevelopment and the Poor

Theories of Urban Blight

• The ‘prisoners’ dilemma’

• The arbitrage model

No private property owner in declining inner city is willing to be the first to improve his property because he does not like his neighbors to unfairly benefit from his move.

High income households rush to sell early to avoid anticipated negative developments, then they abandon the area in favor of low income households who are unable to invest in redevelopment

Rationale for Urban Renewal


• The American model

• The British model

• The East Asia model

Models of Urban Renewal


• Essentially private sector-led, role of government is to give concessions to private developments in the form of

– cheap land

– tax abatements

– subsidized utility services

• Government provides conditions for profit making in urban development by

– absorbing the cost of servicing the redeveloped or renewed land

– reselling the redeveloped lots at subsidized prices

American Model


Procedural Steps

• Eligible communities present a program to eliminate or prevent blight.

• Land acquisition by the local authority through direct purchase at fair market value.

• Relocation of displaced persons or establishments through

• outright payments

• special mortgage insurance to obtain private sector housing

• alternative housing in low-rent public housing projects


• Demolition of all types of buildings

• Site improvement and provision of public facilities

• Resale of improved land to private developers for redevelopment according to a comprehensive plan


• Blighted areas are prevented from reverting to slums.

• Properties transferred to private ownership are put back on the tax assessment roll thus assuring income for local authorities.

• Heavy subsidies on the cost of acquisition and land improvement do not go into dealing with the problems of people affected but for the benefit of private enterprise.

Effects of American Practice


• Long history of urban renewal dating back to the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.

• Urban renewal undertaken by local authorities with financial assistance from the national government.

• Local governments retain ownership of most urban land and housing and continue to monitor the quality of dwelling units.

British Experience


• Local authorities up until mid-1970s declared certain areas as “Housing Treatment Area”.

• Housing treatment involves

– demolition

– compulsory purchase of land if privately owned

– improvement by homeowners with financial grants from the local authorities

• After redevelopment, original occupants are rehoused in the redevelopment area


After 1975 practice was modified to

• Gradual renewal-continuous minor rebuilding and renovation of individual structures

• Focus on upgrading environmental quality rather than on housing

• Expanded urban aid program to include social services to deprived inner city areas


Further shift of emphasis to dealing with unemployment in the inner cities through establishment of

• Enterprise zones

• Loans to private investors

• A package of incentives to investors locating in the enterprise zones

• Urban Development Corporation to revitalize the docklands


• A comprehensive redevelopment approach which provides urban infrastructures together with serviced building sites.

• Transforms unplanned spontaneous settlements into a new configuration of building lots each having street frontage.

• Equitable sharing of costs and benefits among all holders of rights.

Land Readjustment in East Asia


• Formulation of the conceptual plan• Determination of the project area• Formulation of a project plan and implementation activities• Establishment of a Land Readjustment Council• Preparation of draft replotting design• Designation of the provisional replot• Construction• Numbering of lots• General inspection of the replotting plan• Enforcement of land and building plan• Collection and payment of equity

Land Readjustment Process


Deindustrialization

• Concentration of multinational financial capital increased demand for luxury housing inflating prices of land and housing generally.

• Investment in the built environment emphasizes housing for higher income groups working in the financial and services sector.

• Deregulation of home mortgage finance and increase in interest rates lead to frequent mortgage defaults land arrears

Post-Industrial Urban Revitalization


Gentrification - the systematic displacement of lower income urbanites by higher income households either from other parts of the inner cities or by suburbanites returning to the central city. Three forms:

• Classical gentrification - first identified in London in the 1960-1970 decade and later in New York, involves rehabilitation of working class neighborhoods but replacing them with middle class homeowners.

• Tenure conversion - from rented apartments to owner-occupied condominium: low income occupants are displaced by higher income households who could not afford the property prices, or else their mortgage is foreclosed by the banks.

• Functional conversion - from non-residential use to new construction including luxury apartments targeted to the high end market.

Documents

3.1.3 Inner City Development / Redevelopment and the Poor 1 UPA Package 3, Module 1 INNER CITY DEVELOPMENT / REDEVELOPMENT AND THE POOR