The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

The Concept and Causes of Urban Blight

Author(s): G. E. Breger
Source: Land Economics, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Nov., 1967), pp. 369-376
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
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LAND ECONOM
a quarterly journal devoted to the study of economic and social institutions

NOVEMBER VOLUME XLIII

1967 NUMBER 4
%*%ie~

The Concept and Causesof UrbanBlight

By G. E. BREGER*

the history of civiliza-
tion economic progress has led to
THROUGHOUT
the growth of cities. And cities have con-
sequently come to dominate the culture
of man and to symbolize human attain-
ment. Yet the city has ever been a para-
dox of splendor and squalor. Unmatch-
ed in magnificance among the works of
human endeavor, the city is also the site
of appalling human misery, disorder,
and decay. Much that is urban is indeed
dismal and devoid of urbanity, and re-
proachfully odious to man. This which
man would dispel from the city has come
to be called urban blight. Analytically,
its heterogeneity of form and substance
seems to deny to urban blight conceptual
consistency and cohesion. Urban blight
would appear to many to be little more
than convenient nomenclature. None-
theless, universality of usage and intui-
tive perception seem to affirm the valid-
ity of the concept of urban blight. It is
the thesis of this paper that urban blight
is a rational concept - and a unified
reality in essence and cause despite mani-
fest disparities. This thesis is supported
by an analysis of the nature of urban
blight and a theory of causation.
Historic Perspective
The evils of the city seem to have
been born with urbanization and have
probably evolved since antiquity. How-
ever, it was not until the time of the
Renaissance, the 14th-16th centuries,
that the ancestral forms of most modern
urban evils became common to cities.'
* Director, Bureau of Urban and Regional Af-
fairs, University of South Carolina.
1See Arthur B. Gallion and Simon Eisner, "The
New - Classic City," The Urban Patterns (New
York, New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.,
1950).

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370 LAND ECONOMICS
For during the Renaissance the barren
stagnant world of the Dark Ages yielded
to the forces of incentive and innovation.
Cities came to be dynamic centers of eco-
nomic life and growth, and experienced
ceaseless turbulence and unending ad-
justments. Ever since the Renaissance,
through the epic era of the Industrial
Revolution and the dawn of the Nuclear
Age, urbanization has continued at an
accelerated pace. The turbulence of ur-
ban activity and the complexity of urban
adjustments have been multi-magnified.
Though the city has waxed opulent it
has also become more oppressive.
Until relatively recent times the afflic-
tion of the urban unfortunate evoked
neither solace nor sympathy. In modern
history the inertia of medieval fatalism
may have sustained this apathy, or per-
haps it was the vigor of laissez-faire doc-
trine. But with the rise of social respon-
sibility in the mix of modern values the
redemption of the city became an issue
of conscience and a social cause.
During the nineteenth century Charles
Dickens' portrayal of life in the slums
of London did much to call attention to
the malevolence and despair of this som-
ber realm.2 The later and more pointed
writings of Jane Addams and Jacob Riis
among others, describing life in the im-
migrant slums of the New World, re-
vealed to the nation the inhumanity of
the gleaming metropolis and made slums
the focus of absorbing concern.3
During the early decades of the twen-
tieth century there were several small,
socially idealistic non-public projects to
demolish slum dwellings and provide
slum-dwellers with better housing.4 Un-
til the thirties these vanguard projects
were the only efforts of their kind. Na-
tional involvement in the problems of
urban housing in this country awaited
the Great Depression. Spurred by the
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immediacy of joblessness and the onset
of social reform, the government launch-
ed limited, though historically signifi-
cant programs in public housing and
slum clearance during that decade. Ini-
tiated under Reconstruction Finance
Corporation legislation and the United
States Housing Act of 1937, these pro-
grams - their role in recovery notwith-
standing - were concerned essentially
with the relief of human want.5 The
most visible aspect of human want was
housing and thus housing became a spe-
cific target of public policy. Philoso-
phically, the commitment of the govern-
ment to public housing and slum clear-
ance echoed the dissent of a dismayed
citizenry to the excesses of natural de-
termination. With regard to social re-
sponsibility the pendulum of public
sentiment at the close of the pre-war era
stood part-way between apathy and zeal-
ous actions, and was moving forward.
In the post-war era the role of the gov-
ernment in housing and slum clearance
2
Perhaps the most notable of Dickens' work in
this regard is Oliver Twist, 1838. In addition to
repeatedly portraying slum life in later novels,
Dickens actively fought for socially initiated urban
improvements in the periodicals of his day.
s The works of
Jane Addams and Jacob Riis, and
their contemporaries, were in essence exploratory
sociological studies of slum life. See Jane Addams,
The Hull House Maps and Papers (New York, New
York: T. Y. Crewell, 1895); Twenty Years at Hull
House (New York, New York: The Macmillan Com-
pany, 1892); Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half
Lives (New York, New York: Charles Scribner and
Sons, 1890); and The Battle With Slum (New York,
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1892).
' Five basic housing schemes were initiated dur-
ing this period. Each in its own way sought to
improve workers' housing through limited profit
housing projects. See Charles Abrams, The Future
of Housing (New York, New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1946), ch. 14.
5Emergency Relief and Construction Act, July
1932, United States Statutes at Large, Vol. LVII,
Part I, p. 711; and United States Housing Act of
1937, 50 United States Statutes, 899.
 CONCEPT OF URBAN BLIGHT
was greatly expanded. The Housing Act
of 1949 declared "a decent home and a
suitable living environment for every
American family" to be a national goal6
and it authorized a vast total program
to this end. To the legislators, however,
and to many others especially the city
planners and the aesthetically sensitive,
housing and slum clearance could no
longer be considered identical issues.
The sophistication of cosmopolitan af-
fluence had apparently dictated a deft
distinction between the distress of cities
and of citizens. Housing and slum clear-
ance were divorced legislatively and slum
clearance was transformed into "urban
redevelopment." Clearance was still the
fulcrum of public action. But projects
could either begin or end with non-resi-
dential land use, a proviso at variance
with the strict residential requirements
of earlier legislation. Urban redevelop-
ment was soon superceded by "urban re-
newal." The Housing Act of 1954 re-
cast redevelopment into renewal by pro-
viding for the rehabilitation of salvable
housing and fully nonresidential land-
use projects.7 Subsequent legislation am-
plified and enforced the public commit-
ment to renewal and enlarged the area
of attack from block projects to the
neighborhood to the city.8 Thus, in lit-
tle less than a century, the fires of ideal-
ism had kindled an urban revolution.
Through much of the history of mod-
ern concern over cities, slums have com-
monly been called "blighted" areas. And
the term "urban blight" has been used
indiscriminately to describe a profusion
of urban housing offensive to the com-
munity for various reasons. This was
the case until the advent of urban re-
development and urban renewal - and
the resultant stress on planning, and on
the city, rather than on the citizen. The
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371
scope of this change extended the effec-
tive meaning of urban blight to include
almost all that men found manifestly of-
fensive in the city. This term, long ge-
neric to the literature on housing, has
now gained stature among policymakers
and social scientists generally.
The Concept of Urban Blight
The various external differences that
distinguish the many forms of urban
blight easily obscure the common ele-
ments unifying the urban blight con-
cept. Nonacceptance is the most promi-
nent of these elements for nonaccep-
tance is the fundamental signification of
the stigma, urban blight. That non-
acceptance is the dominant signification
of urban blight would seem tautological,
however, were it not that acceptability
has invariably preceded nonacceptance,
denoting a unique sequence characteris-
tic of urban blight. This sequence clear-
ly appears to denote depreciation and
the fact of the sequence indicates that
the process of depreciation has resulted
in blight. Depreciation then is another
of the common elements unifying the
concept of urban blight. The domain
of depreciation delimited by nonaccep-
tance is real property. Accordingly, real
property forms the recognized universe
of urban blight and constitutes still an-
other of the common elements unifying
the urban blight concept.
'United States Housing Act of 1949, 63 United
States Statutes, 413, 414; U.S.C. 1441 and 1450 et seq.
SUnited States Housing Act of 1954, 68 United
States Statutes, 590, 622, 42 U.S.C. 1451 et seq.
8Advances for General Neighborhood Renewal
Plans (GNRP) were authorized by Sec. 301 of the
Housing Act of 1959, 70 United States Statutes,
1091, 1100. Grants for Community Renewal Pro-
grams (CRP) were authorized by Sec. 405 of the
Housing Act of 1959, 73 United States Statutes,
654-672.
372 LAND ECONOMICS
But these elements - nonacceptance,
depreciation, and real property - al-
though sufficient to give conceptual co-
hesion to urban blight, are inadequate
per se to provide an acute definition. To
exposit such a definition further consid-
eration of these elements is necessary.
Nonacceptance implies subjectivity
and community consensus in adjudging
real property to be blighted. Moreover,
nonacceptance divides property depreci-
ation into non-blight and blight. Ac-
cordingly the stigma - blight - desig-
nates a critical stage in the depreciation
process. This process appears to involve
either functional depreciation (loss of
productivity) or social depreciation (loss
of prestige) or both. The result may be
either wretched structural condition or
abominable use, or both. These conse-
quences produce perceptual disutility.
And the categoric delimitation of recog-
nized nonacceptance to real property re-
flects the ubiquitous capacity of realty
to accommodate perceptual disutility.
Permanence and unrestricted observabil-
ity largely explain this attribute. Under-
standably then, real property is the gen-
eralized focus of dissent to the negative
consequences of urbanization.
Thus, from the elements of conceptual
unity and these added considerations it
is possible to define urban blight mean-
ingfully: Urban blight designates a criti-
cal stage in the functional or social de-
preciation of real property beyond which
its existing condition or use is unaccept-
able to the community. This definition
and its inductive foundations predicate,
but hardly preconvey the concept of ur-
ban blight. Conceptualization entails
the exploration and elaboration of the
dimensions of the definition.
It has already been noted that the
depth of the critical stage of property
depreciation that is urban blight is sub-
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jectively determined. It is also impor-
tant to note that the minimumstandards
for acceptablecondition and use depend
upon the social valuesof the community
and may vary greatly due to differences
in the cultural orientation,history,and,
most significantly, the income of com-
munities.
The functional depreciation of real
property (loss of productivity) may re-
sult from either deterioration of the
capacityto renderserviceor a decline in
demandfor the servicerendered. There
are negative price effects initially and
subsequentundermaintenance,for main-
tenance expenditures diminish with
loss of propertyvalue, generally equat-
ing plannedand prevailingservice-yield.
Deterioration of the capacity of realty
to render servicereduces the prevailing
service-yieldbelow that planned. Main-
tenance expendituresin excess of those
necessaryto sustain the prevailing serv-
ice-yield would be ineffectual and are
thereforediminishedaccordingly.A de-
cline in demandfor the servicethatrealty
rendersreducesthe plannedservice-yield
below that prevailing. Maintenanceex-
pendituresin excessof thosenecessaryto
sustain the planned service-yieldwould
be irrationaland are also diminishedac-
cordingly. This equilibratingprocessis
pervasive, applying to the property of
both household and firm.
The social depreciationof real prop-
erty may result from either the continu-
ous ascentof socialvaluesin the commu-
nity or degenerationof the servicequal-
ity of propertyuses. The effects are to
be found in a concomitantchangeof at-
titude towardthe acceptabilityof certain
uses.
Intolerable structural condition is the
consequence of functional depreciation
- the manifestation of undermainte-
nance. Decay and disrepair are usually
 CONCEPT OF URBAN BLIGHT
evident only in the advanced stages of
functional depreciation and generally
signify proportionately large losses in the
value of realty. At this stage of deprecia-
tion nonmaintenance has superceded un-
dermaintenance.
Intolerable use is the consequence of
social depreciation. Social minima for
acceptability are largely concerned with
quality, rather than kind of use. How-
ever, certain iniquitous or antisocial uses
may be intrinsically unacceptable to the
community. Such uses and others that
are not iniquitous or antisocial but orig-
inally of unacceptable quality would ap-
pear to refute the fact of depreciation,
not having undergone the acceptance-
nonacceptance sequence. But that these
uses are unacceptable as a consequence
of depreciation is nevertheless true. For
although the uses observed may not have
proceeded from acceptance to nonaccep-
tance, never having had acceptance, the
historic prototypes of these uses were all
considered acceptable to society during
some earlier period of urban develop-
ment. The essential, though perhaps not
the existing, uses then have depreciated.
The effects are nevertheless identical.
And the fact of depreciation is no less
real.
Property uses that have come to be
blighted due to social depreciation but
are otherwise unchanged, have suffered
relative rather than absolute deprecia-
tion. These uses have not descended
across the blight minima held by the
community; the blight minima has as-
cended past the merit of these uses. Pre-
dominant are the insanitary, unsafe, and
unhealthful uses, those considered to be
unfit for men. But included also are
aesthetically unacceptable and antisocial
uses. Property uses that have come to
be blighted due to social depreciation
and that have changed materially have
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373
suffered absolute depreciation. These
generally are progressively intensive uses
of degenerating quality manifest in con-
tinuously increasing congestion. These
uses descend, not always imperceptibly,
across the blight minima. Thus social
depreciation may be relative or absolute.
Functional depreciation is of course in-
variably absolute.
The areal unit of urban blight is the
site of property marked by intolerable
condition or use regardless of geographic
expanse. It is necessary only that blight
be of sufficient extent to be noticed
since noticeability must precede non-
acceptance. The singular structure and
the neighborhood are therefore insepara-
ble in delineating blight. And the "dead
land" of blighted neighborhoods must
also be included in the composite de-
lineation.
However, the negative characteristics
and deficiencies of blighted neighbor-
hoods are rarely a simple aggregate of the
defects of individual properties. Quite
often, important service facilities are
lacking in these neighborhoods. And
there is commonly an atmosphere of des-
olation and despair. Not infrequently
the appearance and activities of neigh-
borhood residents add conspicuously to
collective corrosion. Or in nonresiden-
tial neighborhoods employees or cus-
tomer clientele may be responsible for
this detractive attribute. Of far greater
importance, blighted neighborhoods gen-
enerally spawn crime and disease, and
thus evoke fear throughout the commu-
nity. And fear is a far deeper and more
distressing emotion than concern or of-
fensiveness, the emotions incited by
other neighborhood defects. Perhaps the
least innocuous of the defects besetting
blighted neighborhoods, though maybe
not the least distressing, is aesthetic inele-
gance. Seemingly unimportant, this fac-
374 LAND ECONOMICS
et of collective countenance is to many
the most disdainful of neighborhood de-
fects.
With the general exception of aesthet-
ic nonacceptance, intolerable property
condition and use are in most instances
reciprocally interrelated - intolerable
use following intolerable condition and
intolerable condition following intoler-
able use. Functional depreciation leads
initially to intolerable structural condi-
tion but may eventually result in so
great a loss of property value that ac-
ceptable uses are repelled and only uses
of unacceptable quality attracted. Social
depreciation leads initially to intolerable
property use but may eventually result
in so great a reduction of use quality
that little more than space-demand uses
persist. Other property services are large-
ly disregarded; hence under-mainte-
nance and intolerable structural condi-
tion. This interrelationship of condition
and use frequently produces cumulative
multiple depreciation.
The most salient and recurrent factor
found in this discussion and the last of
the dimensions of urban blight to be
considered is nonacceptance. Here in-
deed is the core of the concept of urban
blight. More than fact, nonacceptance
is a process and should be understood
accordingly. The determinant distin-
guishing nonacceptance from mere dis-
satisfaction is decision. Personal and po-
litical decision are involved. Egocentric
personal decisions relating to subjective
property choices are irrelevant. Only
projected personal decisions relating to
the property choices of others are of im-
port. In these decisions, nonacceptance
is expressed through negative opinion
and attitude concerning the choices re-
jected. Aggregate personal projected de-
cisions are the basis of political decisions.
Nonacceptance in political decisions then
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is community nonacceptance and is ex-
pressed in the approval of proposals for
remedial action.
The Causes of Urban Blight
The concept of urban blight set forth
here clearly calls for a causal analysis.
This concept considers functional and
social property depreciation essential to
the blight phenomenon and thus infers
rational causation in contradistinction to
random causality. The very ubiquity of
urban blight and the prevalence of these
processesof property depreciation appear
to further affirm rational causation. A
theory of urban blight must therefore
focus on the causes of these processes.
Historic observation inductively pur-
sued leads to the conclusion that func-
tional depreciation is the consequence of
changing land use and technological
change; and social depreciation is the
consequence of rising social standards
and the progressive overutilization of
property. These causal forces commonly
relate to economic progress and urban
growth. And hence functional and social
property depreciation are correctly un-
derstood to be diseconomies of urbaniza-
tion.
Functional depreciation reflects the
vulnerability of urban realty to detrac-
tive externalities and obsolescence - the
negative effects of changing land use and
technological change. Obviously, vulner-
ability is specific to particular properties
and circumstances of change. But all ur-
ban property is nevertheless potentially
vulnerable due to immobility and the
rigidity of structures, and the endlessness
of changing land use and technology.
Externalities, additive and detractive,
are intrinsic to land-use dynamics. De-
tractive externalities result from either
land-use conflict or the separation of
 CONCEPT OF URBAN BLIGHT
complementary uses. Land-use conflict
involves new and existing uses and detri-
mental spillover effects emanating from
the former and imposed on the latter.
Deterioration of the capacity to render
service ensues, followed by undermainte-
nance and blight. The separation of
complementary uses involves relocated
and remaining uses and the detrimental
impact of broken and attenuated link-
ages. Demand for the service property
renders declines, and again undermainte-
nance and blight occurs.
The impact of technological change
per se is much the same. Blight follows
from a decline in demand for the serv-
ices of obsolete realty. But of far greater
importance: technological change may
significantly alter land use or induce
shifts in land use resulting in extensive
externalities of conflict and separation.
Historically the most pronounced effects
of technological change on land use can
be traced to the advent of the automo-
bile. Auto and truck traffic have sub-
stantively altered street use imposing un-
desirable externalities of land-use con-
flict on neighboring properties particu-
larly residential properties. The auto
has also drastically cut the cost of resid-
ing outside the urban core and has
spawned a massive suburban movement
producing severely damaging externali-
ties of land-use separation. Other tech-
nological advances have also contributed
to decentralization: most notably, ad-
vances in home design which lure ur-
banites to the suburbs, and advances in
materials-handling equipment requiring
long, low factories and warehouses and
large tracts of land.
The social depreciation of real prop-
erty is primarily concerned with the
quality of property use but also compre-
hends kind of use - antisocial and un-
aesthetic uses specifically. Moreover, to
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375
the extent that the quality of property
use is a function of the quantity utilized,
social depreciation is also concerned with
use quantities. Rising social standards
cause social depreciation and eventually
the blighting of property through con-
tinuous ascent of the blight minima for
quality and kind of use. Progressive
overutilization causes social depreciation
and the blighting of property through
absolute diminution of use quantities.
Rising social standards are the inevit-
able concomitant of rising real income
and, though imperceptible through time,
may well be the most potent cause of
urban blight. Unhappily there is no
ideal coincidence between the social at-
trition of property uses and the succes-
sion of these uses. Unquestionably, ris-
ing income alone does not explain rising
social standards. Other elements of the
culture mix are needed. Nevertheless it
is clear that much of the problem of ur-
ban blight, and presumably other cur-
rent problems, now exist because pros-
perity begets their existence.
The progressive overutilization of real-
ty can be categorically ascribed to im-
perfections in the market. The market
mechanism normally operates to equate
benefit-yields among comparable invest-
ments. And this implies equality of re-
turns between alternative public invest-
ments, alternative private investments,
and public and private investments.
These may be either utility or dollar re-
turns. Adjustments to growth generally
entail the expansion or duplication of
facilities to accommodate increased us-
age. Historically however, the market
mechanism has often failed to prevent
the overutilization of public capital and
in certain instances has failed to correct
overintensive use. Furthermore, the
market mechanism has not been efficient
in providing low-cost housing to correct
376 LAND ECONOMICS

overintensiveresidentialuses createdby realizedaugmentationwould not be eco-

low-incomepopulation growth. nomic.
With regardto public capital,augmen- With regard to low-cost housing the
tation to preventprogressiveoverutiliza- growthof low-incomepopulation,migra-
tion has invariablyawaited the lag be- tory and natural, has been largely con-
tween private perception and public tained in ethnic ghettos due to fear, ig-
recognitionof the fact of overutilization. norance, and prejudice from within as
The politics of public decision-making well as without. These neighborhoods
has generally imposed further delays. have consequently suffered increasing
But the most formidablebarrierto time- land-useintensitiesresultingnot only in
ly action has been the very magnitudeof the blighting of housing but nearbyfac-
the outlays often needed to construct tories and workshopsas well.
new facilities. The greaterthe necessary These then are the basic causesof ur-
outlaysthe greaterthe necessarybenefit- ban blight - changingland use and tech-
yield and hence the largerthe period of nologicalchange;rising social standards;
progressiveoverutilizationbefore service and the progressive overutilization of
quality, via quantity diminution, so de- property. The interactionof theseforces
generates that the requisite yields are amplifiesand extendsblight. And urban
possible. In the case of certaincentrally- blight per se has been a derivativecause
located facilities and key traffic arteries of blight. The consequenceshave been
surrounded by heavily built-up realty, awesome. Much of the city lies devas-
the cost barrierhas becomeso great that tated or devitalized, grimly contradict-
even if maximum use intensities were ing the achievementsof urban man.

"Honor To Whom Honor Is Due. .. ."

The International Land Economics Fraternity of Lambda
Alpha has given public tribute to an English town planner,
John Richings James, at its most recent annual conference in
San Francisco. It was in the form of an "InternationalUrban
Affairs Award," and describes the recipient's "outstanding ac-
complishmentsin improvementof urban living conditions. Prof.
James is Chief Advisor to the Ministry of Housing and Local
Government of the United Kingdom and its representativeto
the United Nations. He is also Professorof Town and Regional
Planning at the University of Sheffield.
Selection of Mr. James for the signal honor was made by
a committeeof widely known experts in urban planning includ-
ing Dr. Philip Hauser, Chicago, Chairman, Dr. Robert C.
Weaver, Washington, D. C., Victor Gruen, Los Angeles, Dr.
Hans Blumenfeld, Toronto and Dr. Luis Winnick, New York.

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