City decay

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Urban decay is not just limited to the industrialized countries. The picture shows a dilapidated apartment block in Zanzibar , built by German development workers in the 1970s. Once a symbol of progress, today it is in decline. The reasons for this are different and give way to those in industrialized countries e.g. In some cases significantly: overpopulation, socio-cultural distancing, lack of maintenance, etc.
Rear of the ruin of the reception building of the Ostbahnhof in Frankfurt's Ostend , a prominent example of urban decay, September 2008

Urban decay is a sign of deficiencies in the physical structure of a city , which can range from slight impairment of function or appearance to complete destruction. The necessary structural investments to maintain the physical structure are no longer made. Urban structures are being worn out and aging, buildings are becoming ripe for demolition, inoperable or are left as fallow land. This applies in particular to the historical building fabric, but also to worn-out large residential complexes or operational facilities that are no longer used.

Urban decay can spread: If no more investments are made in a district or in a building, the probability increases that less will be invested in the neighboring building or in the neighboring district. Especially when market-driven urban development dominates, urban decay spreads more easily. The English term for urban decay, blight (meaning: “fungus infestation”), implicitly expresses this “contagion” effect.

The circumstances that can lead to urban decay are diverse. However, they always concern the question of why no more or insufficient investments are made in the physical structure. This lack of investment activity can in turn be justified in different ways:

  • A low demand for living space - for example as a result of a falling population - leads to falling prices and rising vacancies. Income for homeowners is falling and there is too little capital available for renewal.
  • External influences such as For example, traffic noise or industrial emissions make residential areas unattractive.
  • The legal framework ensures that rental income and other real estate income are limited. This also means that there are no stimuli for investment activity.
  • But investors can also encourage decay if, for example, the building fabric is deliberately “run down” due to inadequate repairs in order to persuade tenants to move out or to justify the desire to demolish (e.g. for buildings that should actually be preserved for monument protection reasons ).
  • The planning and urban development activities (expansion of the infrastructure, subsidies, new public buildings) concentrate on urban expansion and neglect the worn-out city districts.
  • Urban decay can also be interpreted as a frictional transition phenomenon from one use to another. The old uses no longer take place in buildings or city districts, new uses are not yet available. Urban decay is becoming a phenomenon of the zones in transition .

Intensive countermeasures in this area are being implemented primarily through the urban planning movements of New Urbanism and gentrification . Especially since today many people are interested in returning to the city , gentrification in city centers has renewed and restored numerous buildings of older structures, but - especially in North America - at the same time, parts of the surrounding areas are exposed to urban decay.

A particularly well-known example of urban decay in the modern age is the decline of Detroit .

literature

  • Hans Skifter Andersen: Urban sores: on the interaction between segregation, urban decay, and deprived neighborhoods . Ashgate Publishing, Farnham 2003, ISBN 0-7546-3305-5 .

Web links

Commons : Urban decay  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Hans Andersen Skifter: Urban Sores: On the Interaction Between Segregation, Urban Decay, and Deprived Neighborhoods . In: Urban and regional planning and development . Ashgate, Burlington 2003, ISBN 0-7546-3305-5 , pp. 46 (English, 202 pp., Limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ^ B. Hanlon, JR Short, TJ Vicino: The Decline of Inner Suburbs: The New Suburban Gothic in the United States. In: Geography Compass. 1/3, 2007, doi : 10.1111 / j.1749-8198.2007.00020.x
  3. ^ John Gallagher: Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City . 1st edition. Wayne State University Press, Detroit 2010, ISBN 978-0-8143-3605-2 , pp. 26 ( limited preview in Google Book search).