Blight
In struggling communities full of single-family homes, the cost is too high for developers to acquire and renovate blighted properties. The Neighborhood Homes Investment Act would offer an incentive for investment in existing building stock.
Affordable Housing Finance
Neighborhoods in Nebraska, located in areas already deemed blighted, will receive priority funding and homebuyer tax credits from the state.
Next City
An elevated highway destroyed an African American community in Syracuse, New York. Is just removing it enough?
The Washington Post
As the city of Baltimore grapples with a declining population, it faces obstinate challenges in controlling the problems associated with vacant buildings, including the "vicious cycle" of vacancies causing more vacancies.
The Washington Post
In cities like Boston, the government’s right to take private property displaced residents and destroyed vulnerable neighborhoods and communities.
The Urbanist
Cities in flyover country are facing new redevelopment challenges as companies relocate from costly coastal cities. In St. Louis, downtown revitalization has also brought plans to tackle blight, and the consequences for residents could be immense.
CityLab
Even though they often occupy valuable real estate, some Boston properties have sat vacant in various states of limbo for years.
The Boston Globe
Mobile, Alabama, has changed the way it deals with blight, and the results have been substantial.
Fast Company
The city of St. Petersburg provides a model for transforming blight to a blessing.
Governing
Tulane researchers received major funding support from the National Institutes of Health to study the effects of blight remediation on youth and family violence.
Tulane University
One of Philadelphia's most potent code enforcement tools is back in effect after the state Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling by a lower court.
PlanPhilly
The historically Latino working class neighborhood is a frequent touchstone in debates over gentrification in Los Angeles. That history goes back decades and colors residents' perceptions.
BOOM: A Journal of California
A number of cities are considering hiking up taxes on vacant properties. But does that actually lead to a reduction in blight?
Governing
In some cities and neighborhoods, the number of vacant properties is the only thing growing.
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Legal and community groups in St. Louis align to curb ill-effects of the city's many vacant properties.
KWMU
The borough of Emerson, New Jersey is testing the limits of eminent domain.
NorthJersey
A California policy lets cities offer tax incentives to landowners who put vacant lots to use as urban farms or gardens. Long Beach is the latest comer, but the uptake has been sluggish elsewhere.
Next City
A handful of Delray residents refuse to be displaced by industry, but the plan for a new bridge may mean they don't have a choice.
Detroit Free Press
The kinds of words and arguments people use to describe blight, foreclosure, and eviction reveals a lot of society's biases.
Rustbelt Anthro
What makes one building worth saving and another worth destroying? Strong Towns' Rachel Quednau explores the line between destruction and preservation.
Strong Towns
