The City After Abandonment

Chapter 10. Strategic Thinking for Distressed Neighborhoods

CHAPTER 10 Strategic Thinking for Distressed Neighborhoods Robert A. Beauregard In January 2010, New York governor David Paterson announced his Sustainable Neighborhood Project. Designed to “fight urban decay and revitalize prime housing stock,” his initiative was a response to the persistent population and job loss that beset upstate cities such as Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany. These losses had left behind large numbers of abandoned homes, as well as neighborhoods with residential densities far below those of previous decades. Leveraging existing state and local programs, Governor Paterson designed the Sustainable Neighborhood Project to rehabilitate blighted properties, demolish s tructures to o c ostly to r enovate, a nd t urn fallow lots into community gardens, urban farms, and open space. Paterson slated Buffalo, with its estimated 29,000 vacant residences—nearly one-fifth of its total housing stock—to be the “starting point” for this pilot project, with the city’s West Side as its targeted neighborhood. If and when New York fully implements the Sustainable Neighborhood Project, Buffalo will join a small number of cities that have embarked on a new approach to neighborhood decline. Philadelphia’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, Youngstown, Ohio’s 2010 plan, and Flint, Michigan’s Genesee C ounty L and B ank a re t he b est-known e xamples. B altimore’s Project 5000 has received less publicity but is equally relevant. These types of programs combine two ideas, one old and one new. The old idea is that planners and policy makers should think strategically ab out how to i ntervene w hen s everely d istressed neighborhoods 228 Robert A. Beauregard su ffer from multiple problems such as high poverty rates, enduring population loss, fa lling property v alues, housing aba ndonment, blight, a nd crime. This means bundling programs and then targeting them geographi c ally. The new idea is that, for distressed neighborhoods in shrinking cities, the future most likely means fewer residents, lower demand for public services and diminished use of infrastructure, and much more open space. Th e goal is not to remediate current conditions or launch such growth-oriented initiatives a s la rge-scale r esidential o r i ndustrial r edevelopment p rojects. Rather, the best policy combines aggressive demolition of abandoned buildings with “greening” of vacant lots, all with the intent of downsizing or, as often phrased, “rightsizing” the neighborhood. With more advocates urging city officials to t hink “small,” this is a propitious time to consider how planners and policy makers might strategically i ntervene i n d istressed n eighborhoods. This ch apter r eflects on current approaches by drawing on the experiences and initiatives of cities that have had long-term population and job loss and, consequently, neighborhoods with high levels of abandoned housing. To ground the discussion , I focus on a model of neighborhood change and intervention proposed by the National Vacant Properties Campaign (NVPC, now part of the nonprofit Center for Community Progress), whose purpose is to “provide information, resources, tools, and assistance to su pport . . . vacant property revitalization efforts.” I am interested in the gap between a “best practices ” model and adoption and implementation of that model, its use by individuals embedded in specific geographic, po l iti c al, and or ga n iz a t ion al settings. What considerations have to be addressed to deploy the model effectively? The f ollowing d iscussion em phasizes f our i ssues. Th e first concerns neighborhoods that the model does not directly address; that is, places to which households displaced from distressed neighborhoods have already or will relocate. Second is the need to i ntegrate this neighborhood-based approach w ith c itywide r edevelopment p olicies i nvolving c entral b usiness district and industrial area investments. A t hird issue concerns the placeorientation of such m odels a nd t heir tendency to f ocus on buildings a nd land rather than on the social conditions residents face. Implementation of the model requires sensitivity to t he life trajectories and current needs of those occupying these neighborhoods. Last, and arguably most important, Strategic Thinking for Distressed Neighborhoods 229 are local politics and the organizational capacities of the municipal government and community-based organizations. Models of Neighborhood Intervention As a response to distressed neighborhoods, the National Vacant Properties Campaign proposed “a holistic approach to vacant property reclamation” that involves four strategic actions...