Abstract: The foreclosure crisis resulted in the accumulation of lender-owned homes in many neighborhoods. But little is known about these homes after they enter lender ownership. This article examines the dynamics of foreclosed properties in Fulton County, Georgia. It does so in the context of the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP). Just when NSP was getting under way, lenders began to rapidly sell low-value foreclosed properties. A large majority of the low-value home were purchased by small investors, and purchases of foreclosed homes in low-income neighborhoods were dominated by investor-buyers. The article also discusses policy implications of these findings.

 

Immergluck, Dan. "Distressed and Dumped: Market Dynamics of Low-Value, Foreclosured Properties during the Advent of the Federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program." Journal of Planning Education and Research, 32, no. 1 (2012): 48-61.

Abstract:

Many factors contribute to neighborhood change and succession, one being residential mortgage foreclosures. Limited attention has been paid to how residential mortgage foreclosures in a neighborhood are related to households' socioeconomic status and mobility decisions and, thus, lead to overall neighborhood change. We use sheriff's foreclosure sales data in Cuyahoga County between 1983 and 1989 to predict changes in neighborhood indicators from 1990 to 2000, controlling for various neighborhood and census place indicators and their changes. Results suggest that higher foreclosure rates are positively related to changes in percentage black population, female headship rate, median household income, and unemployment rate. We thus conclude that foreclosures speed up the housing filtering process, and racial and economic turnover of residents. Our results will enable planners and policy makers to understand the transitional process of these neighborhoods so that they can be stabilized in the years following concentrated foreclosures.

 

Li, Yanmei and Hazel Morrow-Jones. "The Impact of Residential Mortgage Foreclosure on Neighborhood Change and Succession." Journal of Planning Education and Research, 30, no. 1 (2010): 22-39.

 

 

Abstract:

There is long-standing interest in predicting if and when less advantaged urban neighborhoods will experience upsurges in their housing prices, yet little research has investigated year-to-year neighborhood price dynamics. The authors advance knowledge in this realm by employing anually updated, readily available indicators created from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and assessor’s data from Washington, D.C., census tracts for 1995 to 2005 to estimate a hazard model of the year when consistent, substantial, and sustained housing price appreciation starts in disadvantaged neighborhoods, based on predictors measured one and two years in advance. The results suggest that proximity to stronger neighborhoods, a robust metropolitan housing market, and inflows of higherstatus home buyers are key predictors of appreciation onset in disadvantaged neighborhoods, but replications and refinements are needed before firm generalizations about this process can be made.

 

Galster, George and Peter Tatian. "Modeling Housing Appreciation - Dynamics in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods." Journal of Planning Education and Research 29, no. 1 (2009): 7-22.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract:

This article examines the impact of metropolitan growth patterns on intrametropolitan spatial differentiation and inner-ring suburban decline in the four metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Portland, using longitudinal census data from 1970 to 2000. The findings of this study show that inner-ring suburbs were increasingly vulnerable to socioeconomic decline relative to other metropolitan subareas. In contrast, the outer-ring suburbs continued to thrive, drawing most of the new population and housing development in the context of intrametropolitan spatial differentiation. The downtowns and some parts of the inner city showed a gradual recovery from the pattern of deterioration. By recognizing the interdependence of all the subareas and applying sound, holistic policies, the public policy decision-making entities can ensure the future stability of the inner-ring suburbs as well as all the surrounding areas of a metropolitan region.

 

Lee, Sugie and Nancey Green Leigh. Intra-metropolitan Spatial Differentiation and Decline of Inner-Ring Suburbs: A Comparison of Four U.S. Metropolitan Areas. Journal of Planning Education and Research 27, no. 2 (2007): 146-164.  

Abstract:

Existing research indicates that minority homeowners are more likely to experience a foreclosure than a white borrower, but despite the importance of immigrants to the owner-occupied housing market, no research has examined the relationship between nativity status and foreclosure. Using a unique data set and binomial logistic regression models, this article examines the relationship between race, ethnicity, nativity status, and foreclosure for a sample of households in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Research results indicate that the relationship between nativity status and foreclosure differs by the race and ethnicity of the household and whether the mortgage was refinanced or for a home purchase.

 

Allen, Ryan. The Relationship between Residential Foreclosures, Race, Ethnicity, and Nativity Status. Journal of Planning Education and Research 31, no. 4 (2011): 125-142.

Abstract:

This article examines residential vacancy patterns in Buffalo, NY, using data from a unique data set. It includes variables from HUD Aggregate USPS Administrative Data on Address Vacancies, the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates for 2005–2009, housing choice voucher (HCV) records of local public housing agencies, and municipal in rem property records. Multiple regression is used to identify significant relationships between vacancy patterns, socioeconomic characteristics, and institutional factors. The findings from this analysis suggest that the percent of vacant residential properties increases in census tracts with elevated poverty rates, higher percentages of renters receiving rental assistance, and long-term vacancies. They also suggest that the percent of abandoned residential properties increases in census tracts with highly concentrated black populations, elevated poverty rates, long-term vacancies, and higher percentages of business addresses. We conclude that these relationships are unique to older core cities experiencing systemic population and job losses. These cities struggle with a distinct type of long-term vacant and abandoned structures, which we label zombie properties. They can be contrasted with vacant and abandoned properties in transitional or regenerating areas. We offer recommendations for further analysis of zombie properties in these urban settings.

 

Silverman, Robert, Yin, Lin and Kelly Patterson. Dawn of the Dead City: An Exploratory Analysis of Vacant Addresses in Buffalo, NY 2008-2010. Journal of Urban Affairs (2012): 1-22. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9906.2012.00627.x.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract:

This article details the transformation of the urban rust belt over the course of economic restructuring. It begins by building typologies of cities at the starting point of restructuring and by showing how cities vary in socioeconomic performance by the endpoint. Multiple methods and data sources are then used to provide a general and detailed story of change for successful and unsuccessful performers. Results show that, in general, deindustrialization is not associated with performance. However, manufacturing still matters. Detailed stories show successful cities of one type have diversified manufacturing, becoming post-industrial producers. Successful cities of another type have specialized, retaining old manufacturing in branch plants. For the first type of city, policies aimed at developing the labor force and encouraging collaboration between local manufacturers is recommended. For the second type, policies targeted at improving the local business climate are encouraged. Results also show all unsuccessful cities have become healthcare-based economies.

 

Hobor, George. Surviving the Era of Deindustrialization: The New Economic Geography of the Urban Rustbelt. Journal of Urban Affairs (2012): 1-18. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9906.2012.00625.x

 

Abstract:

In spite of the amount of urban development that followed the Fall of the Wall, Berlin's urban landscape has remained filled with a large amount of "voids" and disused sites, which have gradually been occupied by various individuals, groups, or entrepreneurs for "temporary" or "interim" uses (such as urban beach bars). This paper analyzes how, and why, such temporary uses of space have been harnessed in recent economic and urban development policies and in the official city marketing discourse in Berlin post-2000, in the context of the discursive and policy shift toward the promotion of Berlin as a "creative city." The gradual process of enlistment of new forms of cultural and social expression by policy-makers and real estate developers for urban development and place marketing purposes has put pressure on the very existence and experimental nature of "temporary uses" and "interim spaces." These have consequently been going through various trajectories of displacement, transformation, commodification, resistance, or disappearance, and in particular cases have become the focus of intense local conflicts.

 

Colomb, Claire. Pushing the Urban Frontier: Temporary Uses of Space, City Marketing, and the Creative City Discourse in 2000s Berlin. Journal of Urban Affairs (2012): 131-152. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9906.2012.00607.x

Abstract:

Many American and European cities have to deal with demographic and economic trajectories leading to urban shrinkage. According to official data, 13% of urban regions in the US and 54% of those in the EU have lost population in recent years. However, the extent and spatial distribution of declining populations differ significantly between Europe and the US. In Germany, the situation is driven by falling birth rates and the effects of German reunification. In the US, shrinkage is basically related to long-term industrial transformation. But the challenges of shrinking cities seldom appeared on the agendas of politicians and urban planners until recently. This article provides a critical overview of the development paths and local strategies of four shrinking cities: Schwedt and Dresden in eastern Germany; Youngstown and Pittsburgh in the US. A typology of urban growth and shrinkage, from economic and demographic perspectives, enables four types of city to be differentiated and the differences between the US and eastern Germany to be discussed. The article suggests that a new transatlantic debate on policy and planning strategies for restructuring shrinking cities is needed to overcome the dominant growth orientation that in most cases intensifies the negative consequences of shrinkage.

 

Wiechmann, Thorsten and Karina Pallagst. Urban Shrinkage in Germany and the USA: A Comparison of Transformation Patterns and Local Strategies. International Journal of Urban & Regional Research 36, no. 2 (2012): 261-280. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01095.x 

Abstract:

Suburban shrinkage, understood as a degenerative urban process stemming from the demise of the Fordist mode of urbanism, is generally manifested in a decline in population, industry and employment. It is also intimately linked to the global restructuring of industrial organization associated with the rise of the post-Fordist mode of urbanism and, more recently, the thrust of Asian industrialization. Framed in the discourse of industrial urbanism, this article examines the first ring of industrial suburbs that developed around large cities in their most rapid Fordist urbanization phase. These industrial suburbs, although they were formed at different times, are today experiencing specific mutations and undergoing profound restructuring on account of their particular spatial position between the central area and the expanding peripheries of the post-Fordist metropolis. This article describes and compares suburban decline in two European cities (Glasgow and Paris) and two Latin American Cities (Sao Paulo, Brazil and Guadalajara, Mexico), as different instances of places asymmetrically and fragmentarily integrated into the geography of globalization.

 

Audirac, Ivonne, Cunningham-Sabot, Emmanuele, Fol, Sylvie, and Sergio Moraes. Declining Suburbs in Europe and Latin America. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36, no. 2 (2012): 226-244. DOI.10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01093.x

Abstract:


Urban shrinkage is not a new phenomenon. It has been documented in a large literature analyzing the social and economic issues that have led to population flight, resulting, in the worse cases, in the eventual abandonment of blocks of housing and neighbourhoods. Analysis of urban shrinkage should take into account the new realization that this phenomenon is now global and multidimensional; but also little understood in all its manifestations. Thus, as the world's population increasingly becomes urban, orthodox views of urban decline need redefinition. The symposium includes articles from 10 urban analysts working on 30 cities around the globe. These analysts belong to the Shrinking Cities International Research Network (SCIRN), whose collaborative work aims to understand different types of city shrinkage and the role that different approaches, policies and strategies have played in the regeneration of these cities. In this way the symposium will inform both a rich diversity of analytical perspectives and country-based studies of the challenges faced by shrinking cities. It will also disseminate SCIRN research results from the last 3 years.


Martinez-Fernandez, Cristina, Audirac, Ivonne, Fol, Sylvie, and Emmanuele Cunningham-Sabot. Shrinking Cities: Urban Challenges and Globalization. International Journal of Urban & Regional Research 36, no. 2 (2012): 213-225. DOI.10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01092.x

Sponsored by the Ridenour Faculty Fellowship Fund, Virginia Tech's School of Public and International Affairs will be hosting a two day conference on Distressed Cities, on April 12-13, 2012, in Blacksburg, VA. The conference will foster a broad, interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of distressed cities and the implications for policy and practice. School faculty, invited guest speakers and master class presentations of selected graduate students will be participating in the round table discussions. The conference is free and open to the public, although RVSP's are being accepted to accommodate lunch. For further information, please refer the flyer or visit the conference blog.