Are slums disappearing from US cities?

[memph]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

And stuff like the photos below.

Chicago slums in 1954

Most of those look like the original building quality wasn't that bad, but became very run down and overcrowded. I'm sure there's ghetto buildings that look like that today too, the question is how run-down today's ghetto housing has to get before even the most desperate tenants abandon it.

[MolsonExport]

South Bronx, 1970s-80s. The nadir of NYC. Unrecognizable today. Stuff like this is becoming rarer:


Photos c/o of spritofbaraka, nytimes


Must see:
• Video Link

But then again, parts of Flint, Michigan look just as bad today.

[JDRCRASH]

There used to be A LOT of trailer park slums along the I-10 and in adjacent areas in the San Gabriel Valley, like in El Monte and Baldwin Park. Even back in the early 90's I actually remember looking out over the freeway as a little kid, seeing how ugly they were.

[LSyd]

yes, they are. what's left:

- poorly maintained/unrenovated shotgun shack neighborhoods/blocks in the deep south
- 1940s/50s public housing
- trailer parks
- border towns and reservations

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[fflint]

Originally Posted by LSyd

yes, they are. what's left:

- poorly maintained/unrenovated shotgun shack neighborhoods/blocks in the deep south
- 1940s/50s public housing
- trailer parks
- border towns and reservations

-

Don't forget homeless encampments.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

South Bronx, 1970s-80s. The nadir of NYC. Unrecognizable today. Stuff like this is becoming rarer:

Though none of that was built as slum housing. It was almost all well-built middle class housing, usually better construction than large swaths of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

But then again, parts of Flint, Michigan look just as bad today.

Flint looks nothing like the South Bronx of the 70's, outside the fact that both are (or were) extremely depressed. Flint is almost all single family homes built for auto workers, and has a fairly nondescript, semi-suburban form.

[chris08876]

The South Bronx will become the next place to gentrify. Slowly, but it will happen. Theres already an influx of new developments hitting the neighborhood.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Though none of that was built as slum housing. It was almost all well-built middle class housing, usually better construction than large swaths of Manhattan and Brooklyn.



Flint looks nothing like the South Bronx of the 70's, outside the fact that both are (or were) extremely depressed. Flint is almost all single family homes built for auto workers, and has a fairly nondescript, semi-suburban form.

I know this, having seen both first hand (Flint last year, South Bronx in mid eighties). I said that it looked as bad, not that it looked the same. You are correct in the sense that much of what was blighted in the South Bronx was originally not built as cheap tenements, although clearly a fair amount was at that, as evidenced by the photos.

These look a lot like tenements:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=153781

[MolsonExport]

Charlotte Street, South Bronx. Then and Now.

reposted from http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=153781

check out http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=153781 for photos of the south Bronx at its worst.

[LSyd]

Originally Posted by fflint

Don't forget homeless encampments.

yes. a decade ago one of my buddies got an improptu tour of one while photographing a rail bridge. they'd been set up there for almost a year.

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[sharkfood]

The pictures of the south Bronx could easily be north philadelphia 2014.

While Philadelphia is experiencing revitalization, once you get beyond certain boundaries, it can very quickly change into a wasteland.

Beyond just abandoned housing and vacant lots, there are plenty of occupied structures in terrible condition. By terrible condition, I mean structural issues, knob and tube electric, water infiltration, holes in ceiling, lack of finished flooring. I am constantly amazed that people are able to live in these conditions.

The third world slums are qualitatively different, because in those countries, building codes are not enforced, nor are property rights safeguarded.

Philadelphia has pretty strong building code enforcement, but it has little effect on the most dilapidated properties, because those properties are owner occupied or at least occupied by a friend or relative of the owner. The only thing comparable to third world conditions would be some of the homeless tent cities.

[edluva]

slums have disappeared from US cities. for decades now. the concerted public housing and federal housing assistance pushes campaigns starting in the post-war decades cleared the US (and western Europe) of large scale urban slums for good. and strict building standards ensure slums don't develop again. slums are basically what separate the 3rd/developing world from the 1st/industrialized world.

all thanks to the evils of "big government"

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by sharkfood

The pictures of the south Bronx could easily be north philadelphia 2014.

They don't look similar, at all. The South Bronx is overwhelmingly large apartment buildings and North Philly is overwhelmingly rowhouses.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by edluva

slums have disappeared from US cities. for decades now. the concerted public housing and federal housing assistance pushes campaigns starting in the post-war decades cleared the US (and western Europe) of large scale urban slums for good. and strict building standards ensure slums don't develop again. slums are basically what separate the 3rd/developing world from the 1st/industrialized world.

all thanks to the evils of "big government"

I dunno about that. Obviously that was the intention. But there were certain snags in the execution. Exhibit A: Pruitt-Igoe


Pruitt-Igoe.com

^arguably far worse than the "slums" it replaced.

Pruitt-Igoe (so named for hometown heroes Wendell O. Pruitt, an African-American WWII fighter pilot, and William L. Igoe, a former U.S. Congressman) was initially conceived in the late ‘40s as one of several projects around St. Louis that, it was hoped, would allow the city to demolish many of its crumbling slum neighborhoods and replace them with modern, efficient, large-scale housing units. Thanks largely to federal funding, work began in 1950 in the depressed DeSoto-Carr section of the city. The firm of Leinweber, Yamasaki and Hellmut was commissioned to design the project (Yamasaki would go on to design the World Trade Center).

Yet at first few moved into the projects, and neglect contributed to a swift decline in the integrity and safety of the community. The Pruitt-Igoe projects, 33 buildings holding nearly 3,000 apartments on a 57-acre site, had begun to deteriorate almost immediately following its completion in 1956, and by the mid- to late-‘60s Pruitt-Igoe had become a byword for just the sort of substandard living conditions, crime, and vandalism it had been built (and acres of slums had been demolished) to prevent. By 1971 it was thought that a mere 600 people occupied the massive project, with many of its buildings completely abandoned and boarded up.

Pruitt-Igoe.com

[MolsonExport]

artists conception of communal rooms (e.g., parks inside the building):


reality:

Wikipedia

[edluva]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I dunno about that. Obviously that was the intention. But there were certain snags in the execution. Exhibit A: Pruitt-Igoe

^arguably far worse than the "slums" it replaced.


Pruitt-Igoe.com

i think our ideas of what constitutes a slum differ. in the third world, what qualifies as a slum is not only urban decay and poverty, but also substandard, unregulated and informal construction serviced by substandard informal infrastructure. true slums also traditionally tend to be overcrowded, as a direct reflection of the rapid rural-to-urban migration of the poor looking for opportunities in big cities which created them in the first place.

pruitt igoe at its worst would not meet the latter criterion, and would be considered luxurious by most standards descriptive of true slums.

but my broader point is that at least in the west, large scale slums which genuinely were borne of the unregulated economy of urban migrants was directly addressed by modernist-inspired government efforts, and virtually done away with in the postwar decades. that's not to say that urban decay didn't persist despite those efforts. but i would hesitate to use the same word to lump american urban decay with the shantytowns of the third world, as they are completely different animals.

[Chicago103]

I know these are highly imprecise definitions but to me there is a difference between a ghetto and a slum within the context of the United States.

Ghetto=impoverished urban area with moderate to low population density due to substantial population loss and decay in infrastructure. Retail and other type of commercial activity are limited to non-existant. i.e. the ghettos of Detroit, many cities in the rustbelt and parts of Chicago like Englewood and North Lawndale, in other words much of the south and west side black ghettos.

Slum=impoversished urban area of high density with often crowded housing conditions for residents. There often is often thriving if often basic commercial activity such as corner grocery stores, small eateries like hot dog joints/taco stands, dollar stores and resale shops. These are more rare in the United States but they are found in parts of NYC like upper Manhattan and the South Bronx. The closest thing in Chicago I can think of would be parts of Pilsen and Little Village and other neighborhoods with heavy populations of recent Hispanic immigrants. In Chicago's past you have the Maxwell Street and Hull House area slums.

In general in America there is more of the former than the latter. So in that sense ghettos are worse than slums. Slums at least have small businesses that cater to the poor albeit densely populated areas. Ghettos have neither the wealth nor the density to support proper economic activity. The failures or urban renewal and public housing transformed many black neighborhoods in Chicago from slums to ghettos.

[edluva]

yes^

slums often have strong social fabric, ghettos usually lack it

[MolsonExport]

good points.