Urban
Decay in the American City
Mark Grotkiewicz
The city is an organism not unlike the tree. Cities
and trees both have ring-shaped growth patterns-the outermost, youngest growth occurs
around the innermost, oldest part in the center. Like trees, cities can also rot away,
leaving hollow emptiness where a once living center used to be. This is the problem with
American cities today; they are rotting away like dying trees. The difference between
dying trees and dying cities is that the cities can be rejuvenated.
As an aspiring architect/urban planner, cities are a natural interest to me. Cities have
been an integral part of society ever since people have been living together. Basically,
without cities, society would not exist. It is important to nurture a city, just like a
tree, so it can thrive. Cities cannot die because they are homes for millions of people.
In this paper I will explore what causes urban decline as well as what is being done to
stop it; using specific examples from Milwaukee. (Though it could also apply to any other
American city; urban decay is not as severe of a problem in other countries as it is in
the United States!)
In the early days of the United States, about 94 percent of the young nation’s
population lived in sparsely populated rural areas or in settlements containing less than
2500 people. Farming was the primary source of income. Two hundred years later, in the
1990s, 78 percent of the US population lives in or around urban areas. Many of these
cities, like Milwaukee, did not even exist in the 1790s. What caused them to grow back
then and why are they declining today?
There are several reasons answering why the cities grew. Throughout the 1800s and 1900s a
vast number of immigrants have settled in the Untied States, to experience the "Land
of Opportunity." Between 1840 and 1930,over 2 million legal immigrants per decade
entered the US, a majority of which settled in cities across the continent. The Industrial
Revolution contributed to the growth of cities. Factories were built to manufacture
products, people were needed to work in the factories, the factories were in the cities,
therefore, people moved into the cities. The more and more factories that were built, the
less and less attractive the cities became, especially for the wealthier citizens, which
caused them to move outside the city to the surrounding countryside because they were able
to afford it. This first period of suburbanization occurred in the last half of the 1800s.
People who lived in these outlying areas were able to travel back into the city first by
railroads, then by horse-drawn streetcars, then by electric streetcars. Whitefish Bay is
an example of a "streetcar suburb" near Milwaukee. One by one, families who
could afford to move out of the city did, leaving behind those who couldn’t.
Nevertheless, more people-whether they were immigrants from other countries, whites from
the Midwestern farms, or blacks from the South-moved into the cities, especially in the
North and Midwest. More people lived in cities than ever before. Growing cities
experienced growing pains in the form of congestion, noise, pollution, slums, poverty, and
crime.
The increasing availability of the automobile brought about the second wave of
suburbanization in the 1920s. More and more people, including the middle-class, were able
to afford cars. Cars allowed them to live farther away from the city, yet they were able
to drive back into the city when they needed to shop or work. The Great Depression in the
1930s brought everything to a halt. Few people were able to move out of the city because
they could not afford it. As the Depression was coming to a close in the late 1930s, World
War II was beginning and industry focused on manufacturing war-related materials. After
the war ended in 1945, veterans returned to the US, married, and started families. These
new families needed places to live. Nice places, away from the negatives in the cities.
The Housing Act of 1949 and newly created government agencies like the Federal Housing
Authority encouraged builders and developers to construct affordable housing for war
veterans. The already deteriorating cities, now with their first ring of suburbs around
them, stared to become a major government concern. The Housing Act of 1949 also authorized
federal support for land clearance and reuse of urban areas that were already
deteriorated.
Slums were leveled, and the land was being reused-as
paths for expressways. With all the new growth around the outside of the city, the
suburbanites needed a better and faster way to get back into the city in order to reach
commercial and industrial areas. In order to replace the housing stock that was lost due
to clearance, housing projects were built, often below standards. In the Housing Act of
1954, the government provided money to cities so they could stabilize areas that were in
the process of deterioration-to stabilize those areas before they get worse. This was
labeled "urban renewal." The result was more expressways, more public housing
for the poor people who lived in the way, and more vacant lots within the central city.
The 1960s through the 1980s brought more growth around the first and second ring suburbs
and more highways, not to mention more poverty, more racial tension, more crime, and more
fear within the inner cities. It was during this time that the mall, the industrial park,
and the office park were first created. With these new types of developments being built
out in the suburbs, suburbanites no longer needed to drive into the city. They could shop,
work, and play without setting foot in the city limits. The youngest development farthest
from the city center flourished while the interior continued to rot. It was also during
this time that the government cut a significant amount of financial aid to cities, most
likely due to the economic recession in the 1970s.
People who could afford to move out of the city continued to do so through the 1980s and
1990s. The decentralizing of cities is a result of rising incomes. As more people earn
more money, they are able to afford bigger houses on bigger lots; and the only place where
they can buy these things is the suburbs. The people who stayed behind couldn’t move
out of the city because they could not afford to, therefore creating a high concentration
of poor people in the older sections of cities. In the past forty years, millions of
families and thousands of businesses relocated to the low-density suburbs, away from the
declining central cities.
Deterioration began to spread into the inner-ring suburbs. According to the 1990 Census,
about 31 percent of all Americans lived in central cities; and of those people, 42 percent
lived below the poverty line. High concentrations of poverty have brought high rates of
crime, unemployment, drug abuse, unstable families, and school truancies. The per capita
income of suburbanites is growing farther apart from urban residents, while unemployment
in the cities is rising. Vacant lots and abandoned buildings in the central cities do not
generate taxes, thus reducing the tax base within cities. A reduced tax base means the
local governments have less money to spend on services like police, public woks, schools,
and other important services. Lower police funding results in more crime. Lower public
works funding results in run-down infrastructure and utilities. Lower school funding
results in insufficient education. These contribute to increased urban decline and make
cities look less attractive to suburbanites who do not want to come into the cities
anymore.
Increased awareness of the poor condition of the inner cities in the 1980s and 1990s
sparked reform within cities, not by the federal government this time, but by the local
governments. Special programs were set up to encourage redeveloping slums and rejuvenating
downtowns. An enterprise zone allows tax breaks for businesses that move into run-down
areas. A tax incremental financing district (TIF) is "a method of public investment
in an area slated for redevelopment by recapturing, for a time, all or a portion of the
increased tax revenue that may result if the redevelopment stimulates private
investment,". Cities also use business improvement districts (BIDs) which are
"special assessment districts in which property owners agree to tax themselves to
generate funds on an annual basis to use for improving the district,". Milwaukee has
several successful case studies that implement these strategies.
The segment of Third Street in Milwaukee that ran through the Harambee and Brewers Hill
neighborhoods north of downtown was once a thriving neighborhood. It was one of
Milwaukee’s busiest commercial districts outside of downtown; shops lined both sides
of the street while middle-class white people of European descent lived on the surrounding
streets. Then, the North-South Freeway was built a few blocks west of Third Street,
running parallel to it. White, middle-class Milwaukee residents began moving out to the
suburbs. With fewer residents in the neighborhood, the stores began to run out of
business. A few miles north in Glendale, Bayshore Mall was built. Life around Third Street
continued to decline. Blacks began moving into the old housing in the neighborhood because
it was all they could afford. The more blacks moved in, the more whites moved out; the
neighborhoods became a predominantly black part of town; so much, in fact, that the
segment of Third Street was renamed Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive to honor the great civil
rights leader. The mid-1990s marked a turning point for King Drive. The City of Milwaukee,
with the help of Firstar Community Investment Corporation (FCIC)-a division of Firstar
Bank, one of the first banks in the country to form a community development
corporation-went into the neighborhood spending millions of combined dollars to revitalize
the rotting neighborhood. In order to encourage redevelopment in the area, the City of
Milwaukee established King Drive as a historic district, a TIF district, and a BID. The
City, FCIC, and other developers worked together to bring in retail franchises and
agencies to serve as anchors for the neighborhood. The Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources located an office on King Drive. Retail chains, the exact same ones that are
typically found in suburban areas, moved to King Drive, such as Foot Locker, Burger King,
and Walgreens. The YWCA of Greater Milwaukee built a community center on King Drive, which
serves as an anchor to the entire neighborhood. Old, boarded up buildings once used as
small shops and bars have been completely renovated to serve as new stores and apartments
for low-income families. Life is coming back to the neighborhood. The effect of
redevelopment ripples throughout the surrounding blocks. Many residential streets near
King Drive have begun to be revitalized. The old run-down houses the lower-class moved
into have slowly been repaired, brought up to code, and painted. Brand new houses, ones
that resemble the look of the existing homes, have been constructed on once vacant lots.
Home ownership is also up, which generates pride among residents, which in turn runs
through the entire community.
In the mid-1800s, a tiny settlement originally named Schwartzburg grew up around what is
presently the corner of Villard and Teutonia Avenues. At this time, the small town was a
considerable distance from the city of Milwaukee. Most of the settlers were of German
background. The last half of the 1800s brought two of the busiest railroad lines in the
state into the small town. As a result, many industries flocked to the area and the
population began to grow. The community was renamed North Milwaukee in 1897 and remained
separate from the City of Milwaukee until it was annexed in 1929. North Milwaukee’s
main business street, Villard Avenue, was lined with shops, restaurants, and banks. The
area was home to many large industries including a tannery, a steel company, and a
foundry. It was a close-knit neighborhood where everybody knew everyone else; they all
lived in the area and all worked in the area. Many of the factories left in the 1970s to
do business at other locations, where freeway access was easier or where labor was
cheaper.
Attraction to suburbia eventually drew residents out of the neighborhood, bounded by
Silver Spring Drive to the north, Congress Street to the south, Twenty-seventh Street to
the east, and Sherman Boulevard to the west. Businesses along Villard Avenue lost
customers to strip malls. By this time, all the land surrounding the old community of
North Milwaukee had been annexed into Milwaukee, putting the neighborhood in the center of
the city. As the predominantly white population moved out, blacks moved in, seeking the
same quality of life that early residents sought; unfortunately with little luck, as the
crime rate increased and home-ownership decreased-until the mid 1990s. In 1997 the
Northwest Side Community Development Corporation (NWSCDC) organized the Villard Avenue
Business Association in order to spark redevelopment in the area. The association set out
to bring in businesses to the neighborhood. An Osco Drug store is one of the major
retailers to move on to Villard Avenue. Little by little, other stores opened up,
including a bookstore and specialty grocery store. A BID was established to raise funds
for streetscaping throughout the commercial areas. Just like King Drive, when the business
district was improved, the surrounding houses were improved. Much of the housing stock is
affordable for lower-income families. Home-ownership has increased which is an important
factor because when people own their own homes, generally they are well-kept, thus further
improving the appearance of a neighborhood. The North Milwaukee neighborhood is on its way
to becoming the nice place to live again.
The deterioration of America’s inner-cities does not rely on just one cause; it is a
combination of factors. Technological advancements contributed to the growth and decline
of cities. The Industrial Revolution created jobs in the cities; which brought people to
the cities. With the invention of railroads, streetcars, and automobiles, upper-class and
middle-class families could escape the ever increasing problems of the cities. The
lower-class population then moved into cities with hopes of finding the same economic
success as previous residents, with minimal success. To add to the problem, the federal
government offered financial aid to cities in order to repair the run-down areas only to
have the local governments use the money to build expressways so the suburbanites could
get back into the cities to work and shop. With the advent of malls, industrial, and
office parks, the suburban population no longer had the need for the city, which was
rotting away from the inside out. Recently, there has been an interest among local
governments and agencies to revitalize the rotted out sections of cities, bringing new
life to old areas. Special programs and redevelopment plans have proven to be
successful in improving the overall quality in portions of the city. It is a slow process,
but well worth the time.
On a personal level, I have learned the detailed history of city growth; its cyclical
patterns and trends. It is important to save the cities; nurture them so they can be
successful. I have been further motivated to study inner-city renovation and I hope to
someday be an important part of the process. It’s not just fixing a city; it’s
fixing lives, a community, and a future.
"People can’t have beautiful souls if they live in ugly surroundings." -
Frank Lloyd Wright
Mark Grotkiewicz is a graduate urban
planning student at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.