A Survey of Recent Research in 'Urban Regeneration'

Rachael Stephens and Leighton Walter Kille gather a collection of relevant and useful research on urban regeneration policies designed to respond to the kind of decline common in the Rust Belt and other cities in the 1970s and 1980s.

Included among the research gathered by the article is a note that urban decline is not just found in Rust Belt (or Legacy) Cities. So, for instance:

A 2015 study published in Applied Geography offers an analytical framework for categorizing neighborhoods in different stages: suburban, stability, blue collar, struggling and new starts. The study suggests that the transition pathways can be highly variable within rapidly growing cities such as Charlotte, N.C., and Portland, Ore., as compared to neighborhoods in cities such as Buffalo and Chicago, which see more predictable “downgrading” trajectories.

The article provides a trove of relevant research and data, but also focuses on the 2013 report from the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy, "Regenerating America’s Legacy Cities." As Jonathan Nettler detailed at the time of the report's release, the report advocates for a holistic approach to urban regeneration rather a silver bullet approach of a stadium development or other megaproject.