Patel 1

Palak Patel

Andrew Cavin

PS1010

3/21/2017

Successful Anti-blight policy paper

Memphis Tennessee has been struggling with blight for years and has over 13,000 vacant

properties. NPI, otherwise known as Neighborhood Preservation Inc. has found a solution. The

Great Memphis Neighborhood Blight elimination charter offers a highly effective model for how

to eliminate blight. It is a well-structured plan that involves all the spheres. More specifically it

encourages the local government to work closely with the community. It also has unique

leadership in the form of NPI co-founder, Steve Barlow. That last big thing that makes the plan

effective is the passion of the coordinating team, they made a large effort to educate themselves

on blight and collect data before creating the action plan.

Urban blight is what run-down buildings or land are called in an urban environment. It is usually

found in the poorer areas of a city but in some cases like Memphis and Detroit's it has spread further. One of

the main causes of blight is the rising cost of property ownership (Agapos). People who can no longer

afford to buy homes, have started renting. When they can no longer pay the home gets foreclosed. Another

cause of blight is Suburbanization. After world war two the people who could afford it left the city which in

turn caused an employment shift. The cities were left with less money, jobs and people (Hortas-Rico).

Blight matters because as well as making cities look like an unappealing places there is a

direct correlation with blighted areas and low education quality and crime. This means there is a

lower quality of life for future residents. An issue that presents itself around extremely blighted

locations is sanitation. Run-down buildings become the perfect home for rats and other pests.

(Hortas-Rico). Blight, while looked at next too topics such as education and crime seems like it
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should be low in the government's agenda; however, making an effort to eliminate blight will

help solve these problems as well.

There have been many efforts in different cities to end blight but most of them have not

been very successful. The 1950's Urban renewal programs focused on relocating the poor people

and stimulating large scale rebuilding (Hortas-Rico). This did not work because the plan did not

encourage the middle class to come back to the city and they did not have anywhere to relocate

the poor. The poor tend to be the "losers" in most anti-blight policies. In McCree, Missouri the

government decided to redevelop Gaslight Square but they used eminent domain and the

residents were no longer welcome in their own neighborhood (Timothy B.). In the present day

volunteer organizations like Blight Busters and the Urban Farming Initiative have also tried to

control blight however organizations that have a limited impact. Over the last 25 years Blight

Busters has only been able to tear down 300 blighted properties.

Organizations like Loveland technologies and policies like the American housing survey

also made an effort to get rid of blight by collecting data. The problem here is that the

information must either be used by the government or another organization to actually fix the

problem. To efficiently combat blight things need to be done on a broader scale. Of course the

opposite end of the spectrum is not good either. An example of that is governor Snyder's

Detroit's rescue plan, blight was mentioned in the plan but it got overshadowed by Detroit's other

issues such as education and reviving the auto industry. Memphis, Tennessee is affected by urban

blight just like Detroit and has found a policy that broad enough to be efficient but also only aims

to get rid of blight. It is called The Greater Memphis Blight Elimination Charter.

The NPI's employees are the ones who realized having the government as well as all four

sphere's work together to combat blight would be the best course of action. The charter is not a
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legally binding document, but a plan to give specific tasks to the agents and institutions involved.

The first two things the charter contains are a solid definition of blight and a vision statement

which is: "Every neighborhood in Memphis and in Shelby County has the right to be free from

the negative impacts and influences caused by vacant, abandoned, and blighted properties."

(Schilling). After that the steps and are listed, There are ten steps total which can be generalized

into four. The first step is to define the problem well enough for the community and local

government to accept that blight is an issue. The charter's definition of blight is vacant or

derelict structures/ buildings and unmaintained real property, often in such conditions that cause

public nuisances, violations of relevant state laws and local ordinances and usually characterized

by litter, dumping, and abandoned personal property. (schilling).

The second step is to collect information and educate government officials as well as the

residents of the city on the specific things they can do to help. The action starts to happen in the

third step, this is where the local government with the civil and market spheres uses the data

collected to physically remove the blight. The fourth and final step begins after the blight

situation starts to change for the better. It is to encourage a new culture of taking care of property

as well as enforcing penalties on those who dont. Information about the land should keep being

updated as the city changes. To oversee the whole process a blight elimination coordination team

was created. The team is responsible for amending the charted as necessary, developing the

policy agendas and holding regular meetings.

When the general public thinks of a solution for blight, the first place they look to solve

the problem is the government. The ideal is for them to swoop in, knock down the buildings and

rebuild them. This deal is a very counterproductive structure, sure everyone wants blight to go

away but they are too fixated on an overly simple solution. This can be seen in Detroit in the
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form of The Detroit blight removal task force. The forces's mission statement can be summarized

into: all blight must be physical removed as quickly as possible.

What makes this structural barrier stronger is that the government also sometimes refuses

to work with other institutions. In the interview for memo two, the founder of Loveland tech

said that the government does not aprove of them mapping blighted areas. This disconnect

between spheres is the opposite of what the charter stands for. The charter encourages the

cooperation of the government, community and market sector. The governments job is to take the

data found into account during the creation of new policies and/or programs, the community

provides a lot of the man power needed to physically tear down buildings and is also a useful

tool to bring attention to the situation. The market sector is what keeps the town from reverting

back into its original state by investing in the city. Previous investment attempts failed because

the investment in Detroit was done before the formulation of a plan and the money never got to

where it needed to be. An example of this was when chase bank invested in the city most of that

money ended up going to towards education.

The coordinating team plays an important role against that structure. Joseph schilling, a

writer for the urban wire and a facilitator for NPI he got to see their work in person. Before the

plan was implemented they held monthly meetings where they learned about blight and its

complexities, the significance of data and importance of working as a team. They also discussed

how blight effected them personally these where typed up and became the basis of the charter.

While those stories may not traditionally be considered data I argue that they are almost as

valuable as mapping out the buildings. Every city is different, in one area blight may attract

crime and in another it may have caused severe satiation issues. As for traditional blight data the

charter puts a spin on that as well. The data collecting process is integrated in the blight removal
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action plan which is a contrast to other anti-blight polices. What that results in is the exact

opposite of the Loveland tech experience. The team could have easily put their effort into

convincing the government to do the work for them but instead they took the time to thoroughly

researched the issue and came up with a specific plan that utilizes all possible resources.

Another structure that the charter had to overcome was the idea that leadership in this

situation should be a political figure. This structure is a very common barrier in policies because

its first nature to assume a political figure would be the one proposing and implementing a plan

against blight. Steve Barlow is the co-founder of NPI. He grew up in Tennessee and spent a lot of

time doing volunteer work at the Cabrini-green public housing project. He began fighting blight

long before the charter. Barlow became a lawyer around the time Neighborhood preservation act

was passed he immediately started filing lawsuits against people to let their buildings fall apart.

He has been a part of 1,000 cases so far. (Veazey). Unlike the mayors and governors behind most

anti blight plans he does not have to please everyone and have the weight of fixing the cities

other problems on his shoulders. His background in a leadership position at a NPI as well as

being a lawyer gives him experience in in blight policy and programs. He is also very passionate

about the issue which is hard to find in public officials who are stretched thin. In addition to

having the qualifications for the job he also has the personality. He was able to gain the trust and

support of public officials as well as community leaders and volunteer organizations.

Overall the charter is very unique thing. One example I think that showcases that is the story

of the singer Aretha Franklin's birthplace. This house had historical significance in Memphis yet

it stood vacant with no indication as to who lived there (Sainz). There is a program under the

charter where student lawyers represent the city to sue home owners that do not keep their

houses up to code. Franklin's house was in limbo in the Shelby county environmental court and
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would have been torn down without the charters encouragement of communication between the

lawyers and the Memphis heritage volunteers. The volunteers stabilized the home and a court

appointed receiver is raising money to turn it into a tourist location. Because of the law student

program the plot of land would have become blight free anyway, but the charter model gives the

city the opportunity to get rid of its blight in the best way.

I believe that Memphis can be a model not only for Detroit, but for all the other cities

effected by blight. One thing that my group can keep in mind from the charter is the importance

of finding a good leader and the fact that they do not have to be a political figure. In Memphis's

case Barlow was the best man for the job. While finding the right person for Detroit may take a

while it will definitely be worth it. Another thing my group can learn from the success is that it is

very important for the different spheres to work together. What I took from the Aretha Franklin

situation was that communication is a big part of working together and every city is different.

The action plan must be tailored to the city. For example the program where they used law

students to help get buildings repaired or demolished was very innovative and helped both the

city and the law students however it may not work in Detroit. By further researching this city and

finding ways that the civic, market, private and government sphere can work together here my

group should be able to create a plan to end urban blight in Detroit.

Works Cited
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Sainz, Adrian. "Blight Battle Finds Focus at Aretha Franklin's Memphis Birthplace." The

Tennessean. N.p., 21 Mar. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.

Veazey, Kyle. "In the Universe of Memphis Blight Fighting, All Roads Lead to Steve Barlow."In

the Universe of Memphis Blight Fighting, All Roads Lead to Steve Barlow. The Commercial

Appeal, 07 Aug. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.

Hortas-Rico, Miriam. "Sprawl, Blight, And The Role Of Urban Containment Policies: Evidence

From U.s. Cities." Journal of Regional Science 55.2 (2014): 298-323. Web.

Schilling, Joseph. "Lessons from Memphis's Collaborative Campaign against Blight." Urban

Institute. N.p., 29 Apr. 2016. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

Agapos, A. M., and Paul R. Dunlap. "Elimination of Urban Blight Through Inverse Proportional

Ad Valorem Property Taxation." American Journal of Economics and Sociology 32.2 (1973):

143-52. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

B. Timothy "Bulldozing the American Dream." Cato Institute. Cato Institute, 18 Oct. 2007. Web.

20 Mar. 2017.

Home." Time to End Blight. Np, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.